In The Shadows
by Jesse A. Harper
Summary: Am I on Punked, or Candid Camera, or something? Because if this is supposed to be a joke, it's not funny." Taylor Harding gets an unwanted shock when she suddenly finds herself in a crudy motel room in Wisconsin with two strange men pointing guns at her.
1. Prologue: Open Every Door

**In The Shadows**

"Well, this isn't the end yet, is it? I do not know how tales are told in your land, but when the people finally do 'arrive' somewhere, it is usually at the end of their journey, and we have much to do yet. Will we actually ever arrive somewhere, and stay there forever, before we die? Life is made of 'goings' on our part, the 'coming' is part of the ending." – Boromir, "Prophecy" by _Narnian Sprite_

**Prologue:**

**Open Every Door**

"Hey Taylor, thanks for coming with me."

Taylor Harding gave Ryan a quick grin as she shoved her hands deep in the pockets of the jeans she was wearing before looking away. She could hardly believe her luck; she'd had a horrible crush on Ryan since her senior year of high school, and all of a sudden he had come up to her as she left her history class that afternoon and asked if she wanted to go hiking with him.

It was almost like a dream come true, although her feelings for him had gone from 'crush' to 'Yeah, he's attractive, but does his personality match too?' over the past five years.

Fortunately for her, five years was the difference between a love-struck teenager who longed for romance and a senior in college with a more practical idea about relationships. It was also what kept her from blushing like a schoolgirl as Ryan fixed her with his intense gray gaze.

"It's no problem," she offered, hesitantly reaching up to brush several flyaway strands of her light brown hair out of her face. "I was just a little surprised, that's all."

Ryan arched a dark eyebrow questioningly at her comment, his lips pursing slightly. "And why would that be?"

"Well… I always pegged you for hanging out with the more popular crowd, that's all," Taylor pointed out with a shrug, although inwardly she started kicking herself the moment the words left her lips. Oh no, she didn't sound snarky at all. Trust her to open her big mouth and say something really stupid right when everything seemed to be going her way.

Surprisingly, Ryan just chuckled at her comment as he shook his head, fiddling almost absentmindedly with something in his jacket pocket.

"Yeah, I could see how you got that idea," he admitted somewhat sheepishly as he reached up and ran a hand through his messy black hair. "I've never really been known for stepping outside my circle of friends."

"I know how that one goes," Taylor offered as she flashed a reassuring grin at the taller man and raised her right hand, cheerfully indicating that she had done the same thing at least once. Ryan smirked slightly at her before he reached out and tugged teasingly on a lock of her long hair, earning a startled yelp from the young woman.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're way too jumpy?" he asked with a teasing grin before he slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her up close to his lean chest. Taylor swore that her face turned the color of the russet button-up flannel shirt she was wearing, but immediately ducked her head down so that her long bangs fell into her face to conceal the unwanted blush.

"My brother's mentioned that on more than one occasion, although he was always the one thinking up ways to scare the ever-living crap out of me when we were kids," she muttered softly. "One time he told me a really scary story right before I had to go to bed, and then went and hid in my closet while I was brushing my teeth. He jumped out and yelled 'I'm gonna eat ya!' right after my mom had turned off the light and left."

Ryan snickered softly as they continued down the dirt trail, their hiking boots scuffing softly against the damp ground.

"And what did you do?"

"Well, seeing as I was about six when he pulled this, I bolted out of bed and ran out into the hall screaming for my dad. He didn't really figure out what had happened, especially since I was babbling something about a monster in my closet, until he heard Mikey laughing his ass off in my room."

"So… you and your brother don't get along very well then, huh?" Ryan ventured, only to have Taylor let out a skeptical snort as she straightened up.

"Actually, he's one of my best friends," she admitted with a smile, turning around slightly to face the taller man. "Once he grew out of the stage where he'd ignore me all the time, we became pretty close, even though he's six years older than me. I had just gotten off the phone with him not too long before you came to pick me up."

The track runner hesitated for a moment before he gave a small shrug and gently pulled away from her.

"Oh. So you told him about me?"

"Yeah, I did. I also told him that we were going out hiking before it got dark."

A flicker of unease crossed Ryan's face at this statement, but it disappeared so fast that Taylor could have sworn that she had imagined it.

"Okay, that's cool."

Taylor arched an eyebrow skeptically at Ryan, a small frown twitching across her lips as she looked at him before she forced it into a teasing grin, although the impish light didn't quite reach her hazel eyes like it usually did.

"What, don't tell me that you're afraid of my big brother?" she joked as she fell back a few steps so Ryan could lead the way to wherever they were going. "I mean, c'mon. It's Halloween tonight; there are a bunch of things that are going to be out and about tonight that are way scarier than he is. Besides, he's married and has a kid on the way, so it's not like he's going to pop out from nowhere and demand to know everything about you."

The lighthearted comment didn't lighten the mood like she had wanted it to, but at least the atmosphere wasn't so tense. Unfortunately, Taylor was now wondering why her words had caused Ryan to clam up. Maybe he was just nervous around the topic of meeting her family.

It would definitely make sense though. She distinctly remembered Mikey being a nervous wreck right before he had to go over to Carla's house to meet her parents for the first time.

The two young adults followed the path for a little bit longer as the setting sun slowly turned the red and gold leaves on the trees around them into stunning shades of crimson, never stopping, until Ryan finally paused in front of a slight gap in the trees. He only hesitated for a moment before he calmly strode off the trail.

"Hey, are you gonna just stand there or do you want to see what I wanted to show you?" he called out over his shoulder, prompting Taylor to hurry after him so she didn't lose the man in the steadily deepening gloom that only an Oregon forest could provide.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she muttered dryly with a good-natured roll of her eyes. "No need to lose your head."

"I'm not losing my head, I just don't want to lose you," Ryan pointed out as he reached out and shoved the obstructing branches out of the way easily. He also didn't hold them out of the way until Taylor had passed, earning a huff of annoyance from the woman as she repeatedly brought her forearms up to keep the springy branches from whipping across her face.

"Ryan, what are we looking for anyways?"

"You'll find out when we get there."

Taylor arched an eyebrow, but managed to bite back the sarcastic 'are we there yet?' that came to mind. What was up with all of the secrecy anyways?

With a soft sigh the woman focused on following Ryan, occasionally ducking underneath a low-hanging branch belonging to some of the older trees as she tried to keep the dark-haired man in sight.

"So, when you mentioned that there were going to be scarier things out tonight than your brother, what did you mean?" Ryan finally asked, breaking the silence that hung around them. "Were you talking about ghosts and vampires and all that stuff?"

"Yeah, kind of," Taylor admitted with a chuckle, earning an appreciative whistle from Ryan as he glanced back at her.

"Are you Wiccan or something then?"

"Excuse me?" she sputtered angrily, her eyes narrowing slightly at the comment. "Just where exactly are you trying to go with that?"

Ryan had the classic 'oh shit' look on his face that every guy has once they realize that they've said something very stupid, and promptly started trying to dig his way out of the very deep hole that he had already dug for himself.

"Well… I just thought that since you read all of those ghost books and stuff that you were into that kind of thing," he stammered apologetically, gray eyes wide as he adopted a pleading expression.

"Since when does the fact that I enjoy reading ghost stories and mythology mean that I'm a Wiccan?" Taylor asked dryly as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I read them for the stories, not because I actually believe in that crap."

"But what about the ghosts and…"

"I was being sarcastic," she pointed out bluntly. "It was supposed to be a joke. There's no such thing as ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or the monster in your closet. They're all just a bunch of stories made up by the superstitious in the Dark Ages to explain things that they didn't understand, or stories told by parents to make their children behave."

An odd look flickered across Ryan's face before he turned around and started heading into the woods towards his unknown destination once more.

"I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have assumed."

"It's okay. Besides, you know what they say about assumptions."

She actually managed to make Ryan laugh at that one and the tension between them eased considerably after that. There was still quite a bit of awkward silence hanging around them though, and it took a few minutes for Ryan to finally get the courage to break it.

"So, do you watch horror movies then?"

"No, not really," Taylor admitted with a shrug. "I think it's mostly a bunch of el cheapo blood and guts, and some of the stuff they come up with is either weirder than shit or completely inaccurate from the legends that they're based off of. Plus, I'm not one of those people who enjoys being scared shitless for no reason, so I tend to change the channel when a horror movie comes on."

Ryan let out a deep, booming laugh at her commentary, effectively startling Taylor, before he came to a halt and indicated to a medium-sized clearing that lay just beyond a thick ring of underbrush.

"Here we are. All we have to do is get through the bushes and we're good," he announced before he plunged into the shrubbery, leaving the young woman behind. She shook her head and muttered something under her breath about common courtesy being just as dead as chivalry before she started to make her way through the prickly bushes. Unfortunately, right before she reached the edge of the barrier, a particularly whippy branch that she had pushed back slipped from her hand and caught her right across the cheek.

"Son of a bitch!" Taylor snarled as she shoved her way through the last of the bushes and stumbled into the clearing before she put her hand up to her right cheek. She wasn't surprised to see that her fingers came away bloody when she lifted her hand away from her face and examined them.

"You okay?" Ryan called over his shoulder as he crouched down next to one of the many large rocks lining the clearing and pulled what looked like a Sharpie out of his jacket pocket before he started scribbling something on the rock.

"I'm fine; I just got bitch-slapped by a tree, that's all."

He snickered audibly at the annoyance in Taylor's voice before he stood up and walked over next to where she was standing and slowly unbuttoning her shirt, revealing the white tank top that she wore underneath.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm hot, but I don't want to take my shirt off. Hence why I'm unbuttoning it."

Ryan just shook his head and sighed before he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and scanned the clearing with a satisfied grin.

"So, what do you think?" he asked as he slung an arm carelessly over Taylor's shoulder, earning an arched eyebrow from the shorter woman.

"It's a rock," she stated flatly as she gave him a look that plainly stated 'you can't be serious'. "You doodled on it with a Sharpie. What am I supposed to think?"

There was no response from Ryan for several long moments before he gave Taylor a dark smirk, and she immediately took a precautionary step backwards, putting herself closer to the center of the clearing.

"You know what I think?" he asked quietly. "I think that you should look before you leap."

Taylor frowned as she glanced around her, and immediately drew in a shocked breath as she registered just what exactly was drawn on the rocks that ringed the clearing in a perfect circle. Different symbols were sketched onto the rough rock in permanent ink, some of them runes, and a few other occult symbols that even an idiot could recognize. It almost looked as though someone had taken signs from every pagan religion in the world and combined them all into this single area. She couldn't be sure though, especially since she didn't even know what half of the symbols were. The pentagram on one of the rocks was a big tipoff though.

As were the Celtic runes painted onto some of the other rocks.

"Just what in the hell are you playing at?!" she snarled as she whipped back around to face Ryan. "Do you even have any idea what half of this shit is? If this is supposed to be a joke, it's not funny."

"It's not a joke," he stated calmly. "I just figured that you're smart, that you could probably help us find some stuff that even we haven't been able to locate before. You even said it yourself; you enjoy reading about myths and legends from all over the place."

"Yeah, but I never joined a cult."

"Are you sure? You never know what could happen."

Taylor let out a sarcastic snort as she glanced around her, more than ready to make a break for it the second she got the chance.

"Sorry, not interested," she stated flatly, her tone hard. "I don't do devil worship."

Ryan didn't look impressed as he deliberately stalked towards her, his face set in a mask of anger as he reached into his jacket pocket for something. Taylor swore quietly under her breath as she took another step backwards, only for her foot to land right on a fallen branch, sending her foot flying out from under her. She didn't even have time to spew out the impressive list of curses that all came to mind as her back connected with the unforgiving dirt, although what happened next was something that she wouldn't forget for a long time.

For one brief, split second she could feel the rough ground under her as she splayed her hands out in an attempt to push her back up to her feet before Ryan was in grabbing range, felt the rocks and sticks on the ground dig into her legs and back through her clothing. Then it was as though the very ground beneath her had turned into water as she felt her stomach plunge down to somewhere in the vicinity of her boots.

Taylor didn't even bother to restrain herself as she let a long string of obscenities fly out, catching one last glimpse of the remaining light left by the setting sun, as well as the look of stunned disbelief on Ryan's face, right before she felt herself start falling.

And it wasn't as though she had fallen down a hole or something. It felt like some cosmic force had suddenly tossed her into a pitch-black tunnel without any light at either end and just decided to let her fall for all eternity. Taylor managed to force out a frightened whimper as she tried not to think about what would happen once she hit the bottom.

It was funny; she absolutely adored thrill rides, especially the 'Tower of Terror' at Disneyland, but falling unrestrained through a dark void was completely different from sitting in a fake elevator that was on a track.

Maybe it was the fact that she knew she wasn't going to die when the ride ended.

The twenty-three-year old had just reached the point where she was about to start hyperventilating when the Department of Weird Shit decided that she hadn't already been traumatized enough already and threw in some sound effects for the hell of it. At first the sounds were nothing more than wordless muttering, accompanied by the disconcerting 'swoosh' of air rushing by her. Unfortunately that didn't last very long. Soon the muttering turned into actual conversations, and Taylor found that she could actually make out what was being said.

"_In almost two years I never bothered you, never asked you for a thing."_

"_I swear, man, you gotta update your cassette tape collection."_

"_Chow time, you freaky bastard! Yeah, that's right, bring it on baby, I taste __**gooood**__!"_

"_You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you?"_

"_I'm not gonna let you die period."_

"_Oh, these locks look like they're gonna be a bitch."_

"_The scarecrow crawled off its cross?"_

"_I'm telling you, Burkitsville, Indiana – Fun Town."_

"_Ooh, look – it's the evil root cellar. Where Satan cans all of his vegetables."_

"_You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!"_

"_I take it I was having another nightmare."_

"_Yeah. Another one."_

"_At least I got some sleep."_

"_It kinda makes you wonder. Of all the things we've hunted, how many exist just because people believed in them?"_

"_Vampires! Gets funnier every time I hear it."_

"_It's very unseemly, making deals with devils."_

"_This is a whole new level of moronic, even for you."_

Then, almost as though someone had pulled a plug somewhere, the voices stopped. In some strange way, the dead silence was even creepier than the voices from nowhere. Before Taylor could even wonder why the voices had disappeared, she suddenly felt her body go _through_ something, almost like ripping through a thin piece of fabric before she slammed into a floor of some kind with a loud 'thud'.

It felt like someone had tossed her off the high dive so she did a back flop, only instead of hitting water she fell into a pool full of concrete.

"Ow, son of a bitch that hurts," she hissed through clenched teeth as she tried not to cry out in agony. "Pain."

It took Taylor several long moments to recover enough before she felt that she was able to sit up without cussing up a storm, much less open her eyes. Once she did she was relatively surprised to find that she was sitting in some kind of room, with absolutely no lights on. The woman frowned as she reached up to gently rub at the spot where her head had hit the floor while she slowly looked around her, patiently waiting for her eyes to adjust to the room's lack of light.

Just when her night vision started to kick in and Taylor figured that she'd be able to make it across the room without smacking her shin on something, she heard the unmistakable sound of a someone removing the safety to a gun right behind her.

"Please tell me that isn't what I think it is," she whispered fervently as she winced, not wanting to turn around to face this new problem.

"I don't know, what do you think it is?" a male voice asked sarcastically before he prodded Taylor right between her shoulder blades with the barrel of the gun. The woman hissed out a curse, but didn't move from where she was seated.

She had thought that today couldn't get any worse. Apparently the universe really enjoyed proving her wrong.

"Who the hell are you?"

The demand, accompanied by the distinctive sound of a shotgun being pumped, was not the most reassuring thing to hear. Taylor winced, but refused to look up into the eyes of the man holding the shotgun that was most definitely aimed at her person, praying that what she had heard was merely a hallucination as she slowly stood ramrod straight with her hands raised slightly in the air in the universal sign of submission.

Unfortunately, the universe apparently neglected to inform the man pointing a gun at her of that vital tidbit of information.

"I said, who are you?" the man growled, apparently losing what little patience he had with her. Taylor said nothing, silently praying that this whole mess was nothing more than a dream, or at least one hell of a hallucination brought on by hitting her head.

Anything was better than this actually being real. She hadn't even done anything to warrant getting a gun aimed at her in the first place for Pete's sake!

"None of your damn business," she finally forced out as she slowly looked up at her… what do you call someone pointing a gun at you for no particular reason? He hadn't fired it yet, so not attacker… threatener was probably a better word, if it even was a word.

"I think this is very much my business, _sweetheart_." There was no mistaking the sarcasm in the man's voice as he stared at her with narrowed green eyes. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that it's not polite to just appear in someone's hotel room in the middle of the night?"

Taylor opened her mouth to fire back a scathing retort, only to have the words die in her throat as the sound of another gun, this one a pistol from the sounds of things, having its safety removed from somewhere off to her right.

"Well crap." Apparently there were two of them.

As Taylor quietly stood there so she wouldn't give the president and V.P of the Itchy Trigger Finger Club an excuse to turn her into Swiss cheese, she tried to come up with a logical reason as to why she would be standing in a room with two men. The only thing that she could come up with was that this whole mess was somehow all Ryan's fault.

"Oh, I am going to strangle him for this," she muttered darkly under her breath. "I swear to god if he shot me up with something I'll hang him from the rafters of the front hall by his testicles. Fucking bastard."

"Now now, that's not very nice," the man with the short hair admonished as he waved the barrel of his shotgun right under her nose, causing Taylor to stiffen up noticeably as she stared at the firearm with impossibly wide eyes. "Even if you are a demon bitch, you still shouldn't threaten a guy's junk."

"Wait, what? What did you just call me?"

"You mean bitch?" The man arched an eyebrow before he gave her a shit-eating smirk. "Sorry honey, but I just call 'em like I see 'em."

Taylor frowned as she stared incredulously at the man before glancing over at the guy off to her right who was still aiming his pistol at her. He was taller than the other man, but his hair was longer and he looked like he was roughly around the same age as Taylor.

"Is this a joke?" she finally asked, looking between the two men with obvious confusion. "Am I on Punked or Candid Camera or some shit like that? Because if this is all just some kind of sick joke cooked up by Ryan and his buddies, I swear to God that you two will be in a whole world of hurt. The whole 'would you like to join my cult?' thing was bad enough, but shooting me up with some kind of hallucinogen and taking me to a hotel room in who knows where goes above and beyond any previously known levels of assholery."

Taylor realized by that point that she was babbling and quickly cut herself off as she sucked in a deep breath, struggling to force down the cold feeling of absolute terror that was slowly welling up in the pit of her stomach. She was alone in a hotel room with two guys, who were both armed.

Either this was all just one stupid prank cooked up by Ryan and his buddies because they found out that she liked him, or they were going to kill her because she had pretty much told Ryan to fuck off after the cult offer.

Judging from the confused looks that both men were giving her, she seriously doubted that this was all just some elaborate hoax.

The taller man slowly lowered his gun, a contemplative frown on his face, before he looked over at the man with the shotgun.

"Dean, I don't think that she's-"

"Sam, she managed to get in here even with the salt and she appeared from out of nowhere. I think we've already established that doesn't exactly scream 'human'."

Taylor looked between the two men for a few seconds, her eyes wide with uncertainty, before she made the decision that it was probably a really good idea to get the hell out of there before she got shot. She had no clue what the hell they were talking about, and she had absolutely no intention whatsoever of sticking around long enough to find out. Slowly and deliberately, she turned her head to face a point right in between the two men before she made her eyes go almost impossibly wide and let an expression of absolute terror wash across her face.

"Holy shit," she hissed as she recoiled slightly from where she was staring at the wall. "What the hell is _that_?"

Both men immediately whipped around with their guns raised to face whatever perceived threat Taylor was talking about, and she used their momentary distraction to bolt for the door to the room. Frantically throwing the deadbolt aside, she wrapped her hands around the handle and jerked the hotel room door open before she slipped out. Just when she was about to slam the door shut, 'Dean' managed to grab the edge of the door and keep her from shutting it.

"And where do you think you're going?" he demanded sharply as he tried to force the door open. Taylor let out a wordless yelp as she jerked backwards and slammed the door on his hand, causing him to jerk his hand back inside as he let fly an impressive array of profanities.

She didn't waste any time dashing down the outside balcony of the hotel towards the stairwell, trying to put as much distance between her and the men behind her as possible. And said men were now charging out of the hotel room after her, although apparently they deemed it necessary to hide their firearms somewhere.

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit," Taylor muttered frantically as she hit the stairwell and ran down it as fast as she dared to while praying that she didn't trip and fall. Right before she hit the landing where the stairwell turned she used her momentum to vault over the railing and land on the next set of stairs, hoping to put a few extra feet between her and her pursuers. She repeated the process three more times at the bends in the stairwell before she hit the ground floor and stumbled out into the parking lot of some kind of motel with a glowing neon sign that proudly proclaimed that it was 'the best in town'.

A shout from the stairwell told her that one of the men had pulled ahead enough to see her, and the woman promptly bolted across the parking lot towards the thick hedge that separated the seedy motel from a patch of forest. Taylor didn't risk glancing back behind her to see how close her pursuer was as she ran right alongside the towering hedge, her breath coming in short, frantic gasps. Even though she was in fairly good condition – being on the swim team at Portland University, where the coach was obsessed, kind of did that to you – she was starting to get slightly winded. Maybe it was because she was scared out of her mind.

Unfortunately, she didn't manage to get very far before her foot snagged on a slightly raised tree root and sent her crashing to the ground.

"Fuck!" Taylor snarled as she scrabbled to get back to her feet, ignoring the stinging cuts on her hands left behind by the rough gravel on the ground. If she was going to go down, she'd go down kicking and screaming, not by tripping over some damn rock. The woman let out a low growl of frustration just as she noticed something odd out of the corner of her eye. There was a gap under the hedge, at least large enough for her to fit under if she crawled.

Taylor didn't even hesitate before she threw herself bodily under the hedge and started to crawl as fast as she could to the other side, trying to fit the majority of her lanky 5'7 frame under the shrubbery before the man closest to her caught up. She had managed to worm most of her way through the prickly branches when a large hand suddenly wrapped around her left ankle and pulled her up short. Taylor immediately looked over her shoulder to see the man that had been identified earlier as Sam lying on the ground, looking as though he had performed a dive face-first into the dirt to catch her before she vanished completely within the hedge, all while holding her foot firmly in his grasp.

"Let go of me!" she yelped as she tried to squirm out of his grip, although she managed to keep herself from kicking him in the face. Even if they were complete assholes, no one deserved to be kicked in the face by someone wearing hiking boots.

"Look, if you just come out maybe we can talk this whole thing over…" Sam began in what was supposed to be a reassuring manner, although it all fell apart like shattered glass when Taylor heard his friend yell something directed at the tall man.

"Sammy, don't let her get away!"

Taylor spat out a vile curse as she drew back her foot and kicked Sam right in the shoulder, causing the man to yelp as he automatically jerked backwards, and then swear as the dry branches inside the hedge raked across his face.

The twenty-three-year old really didn't want to stick around long enough to see what kind of damage she had caused the man, and promptly crawled over to the other side of the hedge before Sam or his trigger-happy buddy decided to haul her out by her ankles. The moment she was fully out in the forest, she stood up and hastily brushed herself off before she took off at a dead sprint towards where she remembered catching sight of a street.

Hopefully, if she was _insanely_ lucky, the two men wouldn't think about going around the hedge until she was long gone.

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Hello everyone. Thanks for taking the time to read my story, especially if you give me some feedback on the details incorporated in here. I'm Wandering Hitokiri, and this is my first Supernatural fanfic, so please be nice, and if I make a mistake I would greatly appreciate it if you would let me know. No flaming though, please. If you want to know my policy on flamers, please see my profile. There's an entire section entitled 'Fire Hose' for the sole purpose of informing people who are less than kind in their reviews just what exactly they're getting themselves into.

For those of you who have read some of my other works, I know that I've probably scared the crap out of you because I'm writing something that's not anime. No, I have not lost my mind. I just needed a change of pace, especially since I've been writing anime-based fanfics for three years now.

Anyways, now that I've assured you of my very firm grip on my sanity… even though other people would probably beg to differ, I'll say goodbye and see you later. The next chapter will be out soon, since I'm almost done with it.


	2. Chapter One: Chase Me Down

"Normal is not something to aspire to; it's something to get away from." – Jodi Foster

**Chapter One:**

**Chase Me Down**

Dean Winchester was not a happy man.

He and Sam had just finished up what could only be described as a pain in the ass encounter with a poltergeist the next state over, and both of them had bruises in places that they didn't even know had existed before today. That had been early that morning, and they had driven all the way from some pissant little town in Minnesota to Cornucopia, Wisconsin, which wasn't much better as far as population went. Everyone there was pretty much either old, or a tourist.

So they hadn't really stuck out all that much when they checked in at a Motel 6 just outside 'city' limits, although the motel was just as crappy on the inside as it looked on the outside. The only thing it had going for it was that it was relatively close to the old log cabin that they had come to check out.

From what information Sam had been able to dig up online before they went to sleep, the body of a local girl that attended high school in the next town over had been found inside the cabin roughly a week ago. The girl had been strangled, but what had perplexed the local authorities was the complete and utter lack of footprints or any signs of a struggle inside the abandoned home. Add in an incredibly violent death suffered by the previous owner five years before, the mysterious disappearance of the one before him, and presto! Instant haunting.

With that in mind, he and Sam were fully prepared to go out and do a standard salt and burn the next morning. Sam had conked out the moment his head had hit the pillow, but Dean had a harder time falling asleep than his brother usually did.

Roughly around one in the morning, just when he was about to fall asleep himself, a bright flash of blue-white light that seared his retinas lit up the area right in front of his bed, followed by the loud 'whump' of something heavy hitting the floor. This was soon followed by the distinctive sound of someone muttering profanities through gritted teeth, probably from whoever had appeared in their room. Dean scowled as he slowly reached over towards his duffle bag and pulled out the sawed-off shotgun that he had left stashed in there – just in case. While the person that had landed in their room was still sitting there and muttering obscene suggestions to the world in general under their breath, he silently slid out of bed and came up behind them before removing the safety on the shotgun.

The person, probably a girl if the long hair and slight frame was anything to go by, immediately tensed up and cringed visibly, although she didn't turn around.

"Please tell me that isn't what I think it is," she whispered, thus cementing Dean's earlier observation that it was a girl he was dealing with.

"I don't know, what do you think it is?" he asked sardonically as he prodded her right between her shoulders with the muzzle of the gun in an attempt to get her to turn around, but she didn't move. He scowled as he shot a heated glare at the girl; he really hated it when demons played stupid.

After that was when things got interesting. Sam woke up and joined him in covering the demon chick, which seemed to freak her out even more. And then she started babbling something about being on Candid Camera and being asked to join a cult. He'd seen some pretty desperate last-ditch attempts by demons trying to throw them off their trail before so he and Sam wouldn't exorcise their sorry asses, but this was just _pathetic_.

The moment the girl seemed to come to the conclusion that she was in some seriously deep shit, she pulled the old 'there's something behind you a hell of a lot scarier than you' act, and he and Sam fell for it like a couple of idiots, right before she ran for the door. He almost caught her when she got out onto the landing, but the bitch slammed the door on his hand before she took off as though an army was at her heels. They had both fallen into bed wearing their clothes, with the promise of taking a shower and cleaning up in the morning when they weren't so damn tired, so it was really only a matter of shoving their feet into their respective shoes and taking off after the runaway. She managed to make it all the way down to the parking lot and under the hedge separating the motel from the forest before Sam caught up with her and grabbed her by the ankle, preventing the girl from disappearing completely under the foliage.

For a few moments he thought that Sam would be able to pull her out from under the hedge, at least until she kicked him hard in the shoulder and disappeared entirely from view.

"Wow Sammy, that's really bad when the chicks start running _from_ you," he commented as he stalked up next to his brother, who had jerked out from under the hedge and was now holding his right shoulder. "Care to tell me why you just got beaten up a by a girl?"

"Shut up," Sam muttered as he rubbed at his abused shoulder ruefully. "She kicks hard."

"That's because she's a demon, man."

Sam arched an eyebrow as he stood up and fixed his older brother with a thoughtful look, a slight frown on his lips before he glanced back over his shoulder at the hedge.

"Dean, I don't think that girl was a demon," he said finally as he reached up and brushed the leaves out of his hair. "She acted more like a scared kid than anything… well, I don't think that she was a kid, but she definitely didn't know how she got into our room any more than we did."

Dean just rolled his eyes before he turned around and headed back towards the parking lot, pulling his keys out of his pocket as he did so.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you think? We're going after her," Dean stated as he unlocked the front door to the Impala and opened it. "Demon chick running loose around B.F.E. Wisconsin trumps pissed-off ghost any day. And, if we wait until morning that thing may have already skipped town."

Sam let out a long sigh, but joined the elder Winchester in the Impala before Dean pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the rural street.

He had a feeling that it was going to be one of those nights.

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Taylor had been a little put out once she realized that she was farther outside of town that she had thought, but after spending twenty minutes of trudging through the forest to avoid being spotted by someone if her pursuers happened to drive by while still keeping the road in sight she finally stumbled upon the outskirts of town. For a few moments she thought that she had made it back to Portland and all she needed to do was find the closest gas station so she could go in and use the phone so she could call Hannah and have her pick her up. That momentary hope died a cold and uncaring death the second she caught sight of the sign that proudly welcomed her to 'Cornucopia'.

"What the hell?" she hissed, her wide hazel eyes riveted firmly on the large wooden sign that had so effortlessly crushed her hopes. "Where the hell is Cornucopia anyways? I swear these freaking signs should have a state map that says 'You are here' on them or something. It would make thing so much easier."

Taylor fumed for a few more seconds before she resumed her trek into town. Given how her luck had been going for the past few hours, she had probably been transported to one of the many small towns scattered around Oregon, which also translated to stuck in the middle of nowhere.

"Well this is just friggin' peachy," she growled darkly as she thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans and headed towards the sidewalk. "I don't even know how far away from Portland I am. I swear if I ever get my hands on Ryan or his buddies… no, not if, _when_. And once I do they are so dead!"

The image of what Mikey would do to Ryan and any participating parties if he found out what they had done to her briefly came to mind, and Taylor had to smirk at the thought. If Mikey ever found out that Ryan had drugged his baby sister, not to mention dumped her in another town, there would be no force on this earth, or in Heaven or Hell either for that matter, that would protect him from her brother's wrath.

For some reason the thought of her brother kicking Ryan's ass cheered Taylor up immensely, and what could only be described as a shit-eating smirk crept across her face. The swimmer let out a soft sigh as she walked further into the small town, feeling significantly safer now that she had left the motel far behind her. Unfortunately, Taylor didn't even manage to reach a gas station before her luck failed her.

The rumble of a car slowly coming up the street behind her caught the young woman off guard, and as she turned around she briefly thought that it was a cop out on a late night patrol. However, as she stood there on the sidewalk for a few seconds in full view of the headlights, she noticed the distinct lack of bubblegum lights on top of the black car. When the vehicle suddenly accelerated towards her, Taylor immediately realized that she had been incredibly stupid, not to mention careless. What the hell had possessed her to believe that she would be able to ditch her pursuers as easily as she had?

Oh yeah, it was called wishful thinking.

Spitting out a curse that practically burned the very air around her, Taylor broke into a panicked run down the street, trying desperately to outrun the car. Even though she knew that there was no way that she'd be able to evade the men, especially if they decided that it was a good idea to run her down, she was definitely going to try.

"Hey you bastards, why don't you try this one on for size?!" she snarled as she suddenly stopped and spun around before taking off in the opposite direction. Taylor smirked dryly as the black car came to a screeching halt, and she promptly used the occupant's temporary confusion as an opportunity to bolt across the road and dart into the alley between two rows of houses.

What she didn't count on was her pursuers backing up and pulling into the alleyway after her.

"Son of a bitch!" Taylor spat as she hauled ass down the dirt alley. She really didn't want to end up as a red smear on some asshole's grille.

Just when she thought that she was about two seconds away from doing a meet 'n greet with Saint Peter up at the Pearly Gates, Taylor saw a pair of metal trash cans placed up nest to the eight-foot wooden fence that lined both sides of the alley. Breaking into a sprint, she clambered up onto the one of metal lids and gripped the top of the rough wooden boards before she hauled herself up and hopped over the fence into someone's backyard. In her haste to get over the fence, Taylor didn't think about the _landing_ part right until she hit the dirt yard on the other side of the fence and promptly fell flat on her face. The woman let out a long, slow breath as she straightened up and gently let her right hand rest over her chest just as she heard the very distinctive sounds of someone slamming car doors shut in the alley.

The blood immediately drained from Taylor's face as she glanced back over her shoulder cautiously before taking one step forward, only to retreat hastily as a low, threatening snarl reverberated across the yard, the noise coming from a wooden doghouse that was in the opposite corner of the yard. A cold feeling of dread started welling up in her stomach as Taylor eyed the dog house apprehensively, and promptly went dead white as a massive Rottweiler stalked out of the house, its beady black eyes fixed unerringly on her.

"Oh God," she whispered shakily as she tried to shove herself into the corner of the fence furthest from the large dog, but all it did was seem to make the Rottweiler even more intent on coming over to deal with her. "Please, go away. Good doggie. Go back to sleep, please. Just… just leave me alone…"

The Rottweiler's threatening snarls slowly increased in volume as he deliberately stalked towards Taylor, his yellowed fangs bared and a malicious glint in his dark eyes. She felt any further pleas die in her throat as she stared at the approaching canine, her entire body trembling visibly with sheer and absolute terror as memories from eighteen years ago came to mind. Taylor couldn't even manage to repress the whimper that unintentionally left her throat as she stared at the slavering canine with impossibly wide eyes, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps. Short, blunt nails dug deep into the rough wood of the fence behind her as the woman pressed her back up against the weathered boards, praying that one of them would give way and allow her to fall back out into the alleyway.

This time Mikey wouldn't be there to pull the dog off of her, to keep it from ripping her apart just like it had tried to do all those years ago. And jumping the fence again wasn't an option since she didn't have something to boost her up. Just when Taylor was about to go into a full-blown panic attack, she heard a male voice just above her head.

"Give me your hand."

Taylor swallowed nervously before she slowly looked over her right shoulder and saw Sam hanging over the fence, a hand extended towards her. Judging from how much of his upper body was visible over the top of the fence, he was probably standing on top of the same trash cans she had used earlier to jump the fence.

Another snarl emanated from the Rottweiler, only it was closer this time.

"Hurry!"

Taylor blanched before she grabbed Sam's hand and allowed him to hastily haul her up over the fence, cringing only slightly when he grabbed her by the belt loops of her jeans to get a better grip and hauled her feet out of the way of the Rottweiler's snapping jaws. There was no argument there; she'd rather be shot than be ripped apart by an enraged dog.

Unfortunately, Sam apparently hadn't thought past getting her over the fence, and had forgotten about what momentum can do when you're perched rather precariously on top of something that has crappy balance, like an aluminum trash can. Both he and Taylor fell to the ground in the alley with a loud 'whump', with Sam lying flat on his back, holding Taylor close to his chest. The two adults didn't move for several moments, both of them trying to regain their breath, before the sound of approaching footsteps caught their attention.

"You know, Sammy, if you really wanted to know how to get girls to throw themselves at you, all you had to do was ask," a laconic voice stated calmly from somewhere off to Taylor's right, and she promptly let out a loud groan as she rolled off of the taller man.

"Oh God," she muttered as she flopped down on her back and stared up at Dean, who was holding a pistol in one hand as he looked at her speculatively. "Okay, it is now official; today sucks ass."

"Really now?" Dean asked wryly as he shot Sam a look. Before anyone could do anything, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small flask, which he then uncapped before unceremoniously dumping its contents on Taylor's face. The woman sputtered angrily as she sat up and wiped the holy water off of her face, but other than that nothing happened.

"What the hell was that for?!" she demanded hotly as she glared daggers at the older Winchester, who merely shrugged as he returned the empty flask to his jacket and holstered his pistol.

"Just checking."

"For what?"

"_Christo_."

Taylor arched an eyebrow as she stared at him, a puzzled frown crossing her face.

"Did you just swear in Latin?" she finally asked, her tone almost incredulous.

Dean opened his mouth to make an appropriately snarky remark, but was interrupted by the Rottweiler throwing itself bodily against the fence while barking up a storm. Taylor paled visibly as she let out a yelp and skidded backwards until her back hit the fence on the far side of the alley, her shirt slipping down to reveal her right shoulder.

Ironically, Sam was the one who noticed it first as he stood up and slowly brushed himself off, brown eyes locking on the scar that almost completely encircled the upper portion of the young woman's shoulder. Judging from the looks of things, it was pretty old, but still noticeable. And it was definitely teeth marks of some kind. The younger Winchester made a slight hand motion that drew Dean's attention to the scar, and he let out a low whistle of surprise. Taylor noticed that they were staring and immediately pulled her flannel shirt back up so that her scar was covered, an odd look flickering across her face.

"Damn, that's one hell of a shiner," Dean quipped with a grin, trying to appear nonchalant. "What happened?"

"Ask the psycho pooch over there," Taylor grumbled as she slowly stood up and jerked a thumb over at the fence where the Rottweiler was now growling loudly at them, all while keeping a wary eye on both Winchesters, just in case they decided to pull a gun on her again. "He was the one trying to give me a repeat performance."

"Well that sucks. What did you do to piss him off?"

"Nothing. Just like how I did nothing to warrant getting a fucking _shotgun_ aimed at me!" Taylor snarled as she glared daggers at Dean, who looked momentarily taken aback by the woman's hostility. Sam, sensing that things would start going bad fast if he didn't do something, stepped in between his brother and Taylor, effectively creating a barrier between the two.

"Look, I'm really sorry about that," he said as he looked Taylor in the eyes. Dean managed to ruin the moment as he let out a disbelieving snort, and Sam shot him a warning look over his shoulder. "And Dean's sorry about it too."

"Your eyes are brown," Taylor stated flatly as she stared at Sam, a deadpan expression on her face.

"What?"

"Did I stutter? I said that your eyes are brown. You're full of shit," she said with a roll of her eyes. "You both are. Good grief, do you two own stock for the B.S. Express or something?"

"Are you saying that we're liars?" Dean growled. Taylor arched an eyebrow as she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a look that plainly said 'no shit'.

"No, I'm saying that you suck at it. I've come up with better excuses before, and I can't lie to save my life," she retorted with an irritated sigh before she brought her hand up and slowly began to massage the bridge of her nose in an effort to dispel the tension that was building up behind her eyes. "God, this is nuts. I'm having a somewhat civil conversation with the people who helped kidnap me."

"Excuse me? We didn't kidnap you sweetheart," Dean snapped. "I hate to break it to you, but you're the one who took it upon yourself to appear right in the middle of our hotel room."

"And how, pray tell, did I just 'magically' appear in your room, eh?" Taylor asked sarcastically, forming air quotes with her fingers at the word 'magically' as she gave the elder Winchester a supremely dirty look. "Somehow, I think it's a little difficult to be standing out in the woods in Portland one minute, and then just 'appear' the next in some cheap-ass motel room in a town I've never even heard of before."

Dean opened his mouth to say something rude, only to be cut off by Sam as he held up a hand to indicate that he had just thought of something.

"Did you say Portland?" he asked quietly, an odd look on his face as he looked at Taylor carefully. "As in Portland, _Oregon_?"

"Yeah. Is there another Portland?" Taylor hesitated for a second before she stared at both men in obvious confusion. "And why are you talking about Oregon like we aren't already there?"

Both Winchesters exchanged almost identical looks of shock and disbelief before they returned their attention to Taylor, who now looked a little unnerved.

"You… you think that you're still in Oregon?" Sam finally said, and was rewarded with Taylor paling noticeably as she started shaking her head, trying to deny what had not yet been said.

"No… no way. There's no way that I… I mean, how? I was only out for a little while," she said hesitantly, as though she was trying to convince herself of what she was saying. "If… if I'm not in Oregon anymore, then where am I?"

"Try Wisconsin," Dean supplied helpfully, causing Taylor to turn the color of an old sheet before her knees gave way and she sat down on the dirt, hard.

"Wisconsin?" she asked weakly, her eyes wide in disbelief as she received an affirmative nod from both brothers, before she let out a low moan and buried her head in her hands. "Oh god. How in the hell did I end up in freaking South Canada?"

"South Canada?" Sam asked curiously, while Dean just snickered quietly at the woman's sarcasm.

"I think what she's saying is that it gets cold here in the winter, Sammy," he offered as he slapped his brother on the shoulder. Sam glared at him as he reached up and rubbed his shoulder reflexively.

"Knock it off, Dean."

"Make me."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

A soft whimper interrupted the friendly insults, and the two Winchesters turned around to see Taylor looking as though she was on the verge of an emotional meltdown. Sam immediately took charge of the situation as he knelt down in front of the violently shaking woman and gently placed a hand on her shoulder, making her twitch in surprise as she whipped her head up to look at him with wide eyes.

"Miss, can you tell us your name and what exactly happened?" he asked softly. "We might be able to help you."

"I don't know about help, but I definitely want to know what the hell Ryan shot me up with that knocked me out long enough for him to haul me across five states without me waking up," Taylor said darkly, although there was a noticeable tremor in her voice. "I don't even remember him pricking me with something, much less passing out."

"That's probably because you didn't," Dean said simply, ignoring the bitchface that Sam gave him for his blunt commentary. Taylor scowled as she leveled a murderous glare at him.

"Okay, so what's your theory on this then, genius?" she growled bad-temperedly before she reached up and raked a hand through her bangs. Dean arched an eyebrow at her attitude before flashed the younger woman a cocky smirk.

"Well, that would depend on whether or not you want to tell us about what you remember before you… woke up in our motel room," he stated calmly, choosing not to mention the fact that she had appeared and not woken up. She had been perfectly lucid when he had talked to her.

"How can you help me anyways? I don't know you two from Adam, so how do I know that I can trust you?" Taylor asked with a scowl as she crossed her arms over her chest, her expression one of utter defiance.

The Winchesters exchanged looks before they both reached into their pockets and pulled out one of their many fake IDs, this one stating that they were both private investigators. Taylor stared at the badges for a few moments before she blinked and looked suitably abashed.

"You guys are cops?"

"Actually, we're private investigators, but technically it's the same thing," Sam offered with a small grin, trying to lighten the tension.

"No, private investigators get paid for checking things out by the people who hire them, cops don't. They get paid by the city or county that they work for," she corrected wearily. "Sorry for kicking you like that earlier."

"You were scared out of your mind. I think that you had a reason to try and fight back."

"Yeah right," Dean scoffed, but fell silent as Sam shot him a look that plainly said 'shut up'.

Taylor frowned for a moment before she let out a long sigh and once again ran a hand through her hair.

"This guy, Ryan Williams, kind of asked me out after my last class… yesterday afternoon. He asked if I wanted to go hiking with him out in the forest by the school." Taylor hesitated, almost as though she was unsure how she should continue, before she took a deep breath and continued with her narration. "I said yes. We met up outside of my dorm at about four thirty, and I told my roommate, who was staying in for the night, that I'd probably be back around eight or so."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold it," Dean said as he waved his hand to indicate that Taylor should stop for a second, before he gave her a disbelieving look. "This guy asked you out, and his idea of a good first date was to take you hiking? That's just sad. He practically hung a sign around his neck saying 'I will never get laid' by doing that."

Sam let out a low groan as he rolled his eyes, fighting the urge to cover his face with his hand. His brother had all the subtleness of a rampaging bulldozer.

"Well, I just thought that it was more of a 'get to know you' thing," Taylor said with a shrug, ignoring the majority of Dean's comment. "At least until he started asking me a bunch of questions."

"Isn't that the point of a 'get to know you' date?" Dean snarked, only to receive a flat stare from Taylor as she quirked an eyebrow slightly, and an annoyed curse from Sam.

"Dean," the youngest Winchester warned, and his brother let out a sigh as he rolled his eyes before he resumed the professional line of questioning.

"Like what?"

"Try something along the lines of whether or not I was a Wiccan just because I enjoy reading folklore," she pointed out with an irritated snort. "He also seemed pretty wigged when I told him that I had talked to my brother on the phone before I left my dorm and told him where I was going."

"Are you a Wiccan?" Sam asked suddenly, and Taylor immediately gave him an incredulous look.

"No! Are you kidding me? My grandmother would skin me alive if she ever caught wind of me messing around with crap like that!" she said fervently before she gave both Winchesters a somewhat crooked grin. "Believe me, nothing is scarier than a pissed-off Scottish grandmother out after your blood. And her weapon of choice happens to be a wooden spoon."

Dean and Sam both winced at the mention of the spoon, the former rubbing the back of his head in memory of one of the harder whacks that Missouri had landed on him with her own spoon 'o doom.

"So, what happened after that?" Sam finally asked after a few moments when it became clear that Dean had decided that he was done playing twenty questions. Taylor frowned slightly before she let out a soft sigh and absentmindedly brushed her bangs out of her face.

"Ryan led me into this clearing out in the woods. It was far enough away from the trail that people wouldn't notice anything going on in there during the day, and it was surrounded by all of these huge bushes." The woman paused for a second before she let out an irritated growl and reached up once again to massage the bridge of her nose. "I'm such an idiot. I should have been paying attention when I walked into the clearing, especially since it was ringed with all of these big-ass rocks. I didn't notice it until later, but they all had some kind of occult symbol scribbled on them."

"What were the symbols written in?"

"Black Sharpie."

Dean burst out laughing at this, an amused smirk flashing across his face as he shook his head.

"Wow, your cult buddies already sound like a bunch of pansies," he snickered. Taylor just rolled her eyes in response.

"They're not my buddies, and I only know of the one person who is in said cult. The only reason I know that Ryan wasn't acting alone was because he said that I could help 'us', meaning that there was more than just him. And his exact words were 'find some stuff that even we haven't been able to locate before'."

Sam decided that he need to break up the impending argument before thing got bad. He really didn't feel like trying to break up a fistfight at the moment.

"What happened after that?"

"That was about when Ryan started acting really weird, especially after I told him that I wasn't interested in joining a cult. He started walking towards me with this… creepy as hell expression on his face, and I backed up until I tripped on something and fell flat on my ass. Right in the middle of the creepy clearing." The young woman stopped and frowned, her expression darkening as she reached up and started rubbing her upper right arm. "That was when things got really weird. For one second I thought everything was normal and I was about to try and get up so I could make a run for it, and then the next it was like some gigantic hole had opened up right under me and I was falling. I'm pretty sure that was about when the hallucinations started."

Sam and Dean exchanged knowing looks before the younger Winchester made a small gesture with his had to indicate that Taylor should continue. They needed to wrap this up fast anyways, since it looked as though the gravity of the situation was starting to hit the woman hard.

"What were the hallucinations about?" Sam asked, and then froze at the contemptuously filthy look that Taylor gave him and Dean before he lifted up his hands in a placating gesture. "I'm only asking because you may have picked up something that was going on around you that may help us out."

Taylor's expression softened into one of resigned understanding before she let out a tired sigh. "Mostly, it was just me falling through this dark void, with no beginning or end, and no way for me to tell if or when I'd hit the bottom. The last part was really pretty messed up though. I started hearing voices."

"Voices?" Dean asked suddenly, earning a skeptical look from the tired woman.

"Yes, voices," she stated simply as she rolled her eyes. "And no, I do not have any history of mental illness in my family."

"I wasn't going to say that."

"Bull. The second someone says that they're hearing voices, the first question people always ask is whether or not they're going mental."

Dean opened his mouth to issue a retort, and Sam promptly socked him in the arm.

"What did the voices say?" he asked, pointedly ignoring Dean's evil glare.

"I don't remember all of it, mostly because I was kind of freaking out a bit at that point, but I do remember one thing that was said. It just stuck, for some weird reason, even though I have absolutely no clue what the hell it means," Taylor admitted reluctantly. "I think it was something along the lines of 'Of all the things we've hunted, how many exist just because people believed in them?' Whatever that means." She let out a sigh as she reached up and rubbed the back of her neck, only to look up and notice that she had the complete and undivided attention of both Winchesters. "What?"

"Nothing. It's nothing," Sam muttered as he shook his head, trying to hide his unease, while Dean just shot Taylor a dirty look. She arched an eyebrow questioningly as she looked at the two men, worry flickering through her eyes.

"Look, something I said freaked you guys out, and if it did, I'm sorry. Besides, I shouldn't have said anything in the first place," Taylor pointed out with a weary sigh before she brought her right hand up and started to massage her temple. "It was just a damn hallucination, nothing more. Any ways, it's not like it was real or anything."

"Uh-huh, right," Dean growled under his breath. There was dead silence in the alley for several long moments as the three adults all stared at each other, each of them trying to keep their expressions neutral, with some of them faring better than others. Finally, Sam let out a weary sigh as he reached up and started to rub the back of his neck.

"Well, I guess we better get going since its pretty late, huh?" he said, giving his brother a meaningful look. "It'd probably be best if we finished discussing this somewhere more private anyways."

"Yeah," Dean muttered as he looked Taylor over before he frowned. "What did you say your name was again?"

"I didn't," Taylor pointed out wearily as she tried her best not to say anything sarcastic. "And my name's Taylor. Taylor Harding."

"Isn't that a boy's name?"

The death glare that Dean received from the woman was more than enough to tell him that she had heard the question before, and she was most definitely not amused.

"Okay, sorry, but you do understand that we'll also need other personal information, such as your height, age," Dean hesitated for a second before he allowed a slight smirk to cross his features. "Bust size."

Sam gaped at the elder Winchester in shock, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly in a mixture of stunned disbelief and irritation at his brother's sheer and utter lack of tact. Taylor just stared flatly at him, her expression one of disgust and annoyance, before she slowly raised her right hand and held her index, middle, and pointer fingers up.

"Read between the lines," she growled darkly, baring her teeth in what she hoped was a threatening manner. Sam blinked once at the woman's audacity before he burst out laughing, earning him an annoyed scowl from Dean

Apparently she had dealt with people like his brother before.

"Okay, how about we get back to the motel now before it gets too late?" Sam asked as he walked over to Taylor and held out his hand, offering to help her up. The woman looked at him hesitantly for a few moments before she placed her hand in his and allowed him to help her to her feet. Once she was on her feet and relatively certain that she wouldn't collapse again, she pulled away from Sam and stood a reasonable distance away from him. There was a slight moment of awkward silence before the lanky man spoke again. "So, that's one nasty scar, huh? You said something about being attacked by a dog?"

"Yeah, when I was five," she muttered as she took another small step away from the man, mostly for her own reassurance. She had no illusions as to how far she'd be able to run before Longshanks caught her, even though they said that they would help her. "I was playing out in my front yard when this Rottweiler from down the street from us got out. The funny thing was I didn't even notice it until it knocked be flat on my back and embedded its teeth in my shoulder. All I remember being able to do was scream bloody murder, at least until Mikey ran out of the house and drop-kicked the damn thing in the face."

"Mikey?"

"My big brother," Taylor offered. "He was about eleven when it happened. Anyways, he grabbed me and dragged me up into the bed of our dad's truck before the Rottweiler could come after us again and started yelling for our dad. It was the first time I ever went to the emergency room, and I've spent the rest of my life trying to stay out."

"Why, you don't like the doctors and their scary tongue depressors?" Dean asked sarcastically, earning him an evil glare from Taylor as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"No, try something more along the lines of I'm not exactly fond being stitched up like a broken stuffed animal," she growled. "I was five, and I kept saying 'no stitches no stitches' when the doctors told me that they had to close up my shoulder, especially since I was pretty much bleeding all over the place. So the nurse tells me that they're just going to put bandages on my shoulder. I was completely fine with that and I calmed down, at least until the doctor came in and threaded this big-ass needle before he started stitching up my shoulder."

Dean looked as though he wanted to burst out laughing, while Sam just shook his head.

"So, you hate needles then?" he ventured, and earned a wry snort from Taylor as she glanced over at him.

"And hospitals. But mostly needles. They're the tools of evil, and right up there with math books. If you pour holy water on them, they burst into flame," she said as she made a flicking gesture with her wrist, almost as though she was banishing any imaginary needles away from her, sending the unbuttoned cuffs of her sleeve flopping away from her hand. Both Winchesters watched her for a few seconds, taking in the still-tense body language that the woman was displaying even as she made some half-assed attempts at cracking jokes

Even though she was doing her best to appear nonchalant, it was blatantly obvious to both Dean and Sam that Taylor was scared out of her mind. Neither one of them really blamed her though. She'd just had her first encounter with the weird shit that they dealt with on a daily basis, and she was trying desperately to cling to what little sanity her world had left.

Both of them silently agreed that they were going to let her, even if it meant coming off as a couple of semi-careless private investigators who didn't lock the door to their motel room properly. That was their story, and they were sticking to it.

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The drive back to the Motel 6 was pretty quiet, and consisted mostly of Taylor staring out the window of the backseat with a lost look in her eyes. It had taken a quite bit of talking, mostly from Sam, since he was the less flirty of the two, to get the young woman into the Impala, but after a while she finally caved and accepted the offer for a ride back to the motel for what it was. She wasn't completely at ease with either one of the Winchesters, but at least she wasn't trying to run for her life, convinced that they were trying to kill her.

When they pulled into the motel parking lot and parked right in the same space that they had vacated less than an hour earlier, Taylor merely looked up at the building and softly muttered 'civilization' under her breath. This earned her a few odd looks from the Winchesters before Sam motioned for her to follow him up the stairs and Dean brought up the rear, eyeing the quiet women warily.

"I'm not gonna run away again, you know," she finally stated, her voiced thickly laced with weary annoyance as she cast a glance over her shoulder at the hunter. Dean gave a rude-sounding snort of disbelief.

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"Gee, thanks. Your faith in me is overwhelming," Taylor drawled sarcastically as she returned her attention to the ground in front of her. "You know, for private investigators, you guys sure are paranoid. I thought you were supposed to help people."

"And you wouldn't call this helping?" Dean retorted. "From what I can see, we're giving you a place to stay for the night until you can call someone to pick you up in the morning. That goes above and beyond the call of duty."

The woman turned around fully to face him, an indescribable expression on her face as she looked him right in the eye for several seconds, her gaze never wavering. Once she seemed to be satisfied with whatever she was looking for, she let her gaze drop as a resigned look replaced the previous expression and she let out a long sigh before she turned back around to follow Sam again.

"Sorry if I'm being a pain in the ass," she finally said as she brought her hand up to rub the back of her head. "Look, I … I just want to be able to get home in one piece, okay? My brother's first kid is going to be born in a few months, and he and his wife have already named me its godmother. Knowing my brother, if something were to happen to me… well, he'd probably name the poor kid after me in my 'honor' or something like that. Besides, it's kind of cruel and unusual punishment to name a kid after your dead relatives."

"Sam and I are both named after our grandparents," Dean interjected, giving Taylor a dirty look, his voice heavy with the implied 'don't insult our names'. She glanced over her shoulder at him and chuckled, a wry grin twitching about her lips as she gave a half-hearted shrug.

"And I'm named after my mom's best friend since high school. She was killed by a drunk driver the year before I was born. Like I said, it's kind of depressing."

Sam chuckled quietly up ahead, and Dean scowled while Taylor just rolled her eyes and shook her head, a faint smile on her lips.

"Okay, we get it. Enough with the lame jokes already," he muttered irritably. Taylor arched an eyebrow, but didn't say anything else. Sam just looked in between them before he received the slight nod of affirmation from Dean that indicated that he could let them in. The younger Winchester unlocked the door to their room and stepped aside so that Taylor could go in first. She didn't even hesitate as she stepped across the line of salt spread in front of the threshold, nor did she really notice it, and walked over to the other side of the room, where she promptly flopped down in a spindly wooden chair with a loud sigh.

Sam glanced over at the woman, and almost immediately wished he hadn't. The wearily resigned look in her eyes as she stared at them was worse than the stubborn defiance he had seen earlier.

"So… what's next?" she finally asked after both men had entered the room and closed the door behind them, Dean pausing long enough to throw the deadbolt and door chain. Dean gazed at her speculatively for a few moments, his brow furrowing in concentration before he forced a nonchalant shrug as he sat down on his bed.

"Now we get some sleep," he stated as he kicked off his boots and let them drop to the floor. "You can call your folks in the morning and make arrangements to get back home."

Taylor stared at them blankly for a few moments before she nodded. "Sounds like a plan. I just wish I hadn't lost my cell phone though."

"You lost your cell phone?"

"Unfortunately."

"That sucks."

The woman rolled her eyes as she gave a rather undignified-sounding snort and folded her arms in front of her chest, leaning back slightly in the chair.

"Man, you're tellin' me," she muttered dryly before she brought her hand up and began to massage the bridge of her nose once again, her eyes closing slightly as she did so. "I keep thinking that this can't get any worse, and then something new pops up. At least I still have my wallet though, so all is not lost."

"Really now. And why is that?" Dean couldn't help asking sarcastically. Taylor just ignored him as she closed her eyes, almost as though she wanted to pretend that she was alone in the room.

"Because I can't buy a plane ticket without photo ID," she finally said. "And somehow, I think that's how this is going to go down."

Dean gave a disbelieving snort, but didn't say anything else as he reclined on his bed. Sam arched an eyebrow questioningly as he gave his brother a look that plainly said 'you can't be serious'.

"What about her?" he asked as he pointed over in Taylor's direction, earning a slightly bewildered look from the woman in question. "Where's she going to sleep?"

Dean smirked as he leaned over the gap between the beds and grabbed one of the pillows before he threw it at Sam, who caught it before it hit him in the face.

"Congratulations, you just volunteered to sleep on the floor," he said in a falsely cheerful tone, ignoring the affronted expression on the taller man's face as he slumped back on his bed. Before Sam could say anything to dispute this statement, Taylor jerked her head up to stare at them in a traditional 'deer in the headlights' manner, her eyes wide and mouth moving wordlessly in shock.

"Y-you don't have to do that!" she finally stammered out as she looked in between the brothers almost frantically. "I'm good with sleeping on the floor. Honest."

Sam and Dean both exchanged glances before the younger man shrugged and got up to retrieve a spare blanket from the cabinet under the TV.

"You might as well," he told Taylor offhandedly over his shoulder. The woman looked as though she was about to protest, only to have Sam give her a look that plainly indicated she didn't really have a choice.

"Fine," she sighed reluctantly as she bent down to unlace her boots and slid them off, leaving them sitting at the foot of the chair before she padded over to the bed and allowed herself to collapse on the lumpy mattress, not even bothering to take off her overshirt. It wasn't like she needed to get up and go to class in the morning.

Taylor let out a long sigh as she pulled the thin pillow up to her face and buried her head in it, silently wishing that when she woke up she'd find out that this whole fiasco was nothing more than a bad dream brought on by eating bad Chinese food. She honestly didn't expect to be able to fall asleep, especially after everything that had happened within the past hour, hour-and-a-half, but soon Taylor found herself drifting off, welcoming the dark oblivion that sleep offered her.

Once both Winchesters were certain that the woman was sound asleep, Dean frowned slightly as he sat up and stared at Sam, his eyes narrowing slightly as he glanced over at Taylor.

"Okay, what the hell is going on?" he finally growled as he jerked a thumb over at the woman's slumbering form. "It's not like I'm complaining or anything, but the last time I checked, motel rooms didn't come with a free chick."

"Dean, keep your voice down," Sam hissed as he cast a precautionary glimpse over at Taylor to make sure that she was really asleep, and was satisfied to see that she was out like a light. "Look, that girl was more scared of us and what she thought we might do to her than anything else. She did what pretty much every normal person would do if they woke up with someone aiming a gun at them: she ran."

"Sammy, you say she woke up, but she was awake and lucid when I saw her. Hell, I _heard_ her land on the floor or whatever it was that happened," Dean retorted hotly. "One second I'm lying on the bed, about to go to sleep, and the next there's this big flash of light before I hear a thump and swearing. I'm telling you right now, that girl is _not_ normal."

"Well from what I can tell, she doesn't have a clue what happened to her, and she didn't react to the salt _or_ the holy water," the taller man pointed out in what he hoped was a patient tone. "She's not a demon or a ghost, and probably not a witch."

"Then maybe she's something else."

"Or maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like she told us!" Sam growled back before he pointed over at Taylor. "Look Dean, so far she hasn't really given us any reason to think she's something other than a perfectly normal girl who got involved with the supernatural by accident."

"And how do you explain the whole bit with her appearing in our motel room at one in the morning?" Dean asked harshly.

"She mentioned the circle in the clearing she was in before she ended up here. That Ryan guy was probably intending on using her for a sacrifice of some kind, and the result dumped her here."

Dean scowled as he stared intently at his brother, his eyebrows knitting together in a purely annoyed fashion before he cast a meaningful glance over at Taylor.

"And how do you know that she's not a changeling, or even a succubus?"

The youngest Winchester gave a skeptical snort as he cocked an eyebrow, a faintly amused smile twitching about his lips as he shook his head.

"Dean, somehow I _severely_ doubt that girl is a succubus. Aren't they supposed to be… drop-dead gorgeous or something?" Sam asked as he flashed his brother a faint grin. "I mean, I'm not saying that she's ugly or anything, but-"

"She's no supermodel," Dean pointed out with a sigh before he gave Sam one of his patented smirks. "Fine, I'll drop it for now, but in the morning we're going to make sure this girl isn't something dangerous before we ship her off to wherever the hell she's from."

"Portland."

"Whatever. Just go to sleep, Samantha."

Sam scowled at the older man and decided that no, throwing the pillow at Dean was probably not the best idea.

"Don't call me that," he huffed in annoyance as he lay down on the floor and tried to get comfortable. He had a feeling that he wasn't going to get very much sleep.

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When Taylor woke up the next morning to the sound of a man singing loudly in her room, she let out a loud groan as she pulled her pillow over her head to block out the annoying sounds.

"Damien. Stop singing," she growled tiredly as she mentally envisioned throttling her roommate's boyfriend while trying to go back to sleep. "Not all of us are freakish morning people like you."

The singing stopped, and Taylor let out a sigh of relief as she relaxed and allowed herself to drift off again, a slow smile creeping across her face. At least she this time she hadn't needed to throw something at the annoyingly cheerful man, or threaten him with hanging him upside down from the flagpole out front in nothing but his boxers.

"And just who is Damien?" someone asked right in her ear, causing the woman to let out a yelp as she shot up and automatically twisted away from the man, somehow managing to wrap the sheets around her in the process. Taylor let out a long and fluid string of curses as she fell over the side of the motel bed with a loud 'thump', earning an amused snicker from Dean as he watched her squirm about on the floor in an effort to free herself from the offending sheets.

"A little jumpy this morning, huh?" he asked dryly, earning an annoyed snort as Taylor looked up at him before a brief flash of disappointment crossed her face. Wordlessly, the woman lowered her eyes as she stared down at the pale blue sheets twisted around her legs before she let out a faint sigh and started untangling the fabric from her own limbs.

"No, I just don't like being surprised in the mornings," she muttered softly as she finally managed to pull her legs free from the entangling material and tossed the sheet back up onto the bed where it belonged. "And I… I was hoping that everything had been just a dream."

Dean arched an eyebrow as he looked at Taylor, who got to her feet and sat down on the edge of the bed she had occupied for the night, her expression downcast as she stared at the faded carpet that covered the floor and slowly ran her sock-clad feet over one of the 'floral' designs. After a few moments he let out a sigh as he ran a hand over his short hair before he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a gray cell phone.

"Here," he said as he tossed it to Taylor, who yelped as she barely caught the device before it hit the ground. "I stepped on that when I was going to get a shower earlier. Looks like it fell out of your pocket before you ran out of the room."

The woman stared down at her cell phone for a few seconds before she gave Dean a weak grin. "Oh… thanks."

"I found your phone and all I get is a 'thanks'?" the eldest Winchester asked as teasingly he flashed a smirk that had probably charmed God only knows how many women. "I feel severely underappreciated."

Taylor's weak grin widened faintly before she let out a low chuckle and shook her head, her fingers wrapping protectively around her phone as she did so. "You sound like my brother when you do that. It's kind of weird."

"That's probably because I'm an older brother too," he pointed out as he cocked an eyebrow slightly. "Now why don't you call your folks and let them know that you're okay."

This time the smile that the woman flashed him was broad as she gave him a thankful look before she flipped the phone open and started scrolling down her list of contacts. Taylor hesitated for a second, an odd feeling twisting in her gut as she stared down at the words 'Dad Cell', before she shrugged it off and pressed dial. Her phone rang the dial tone several times before it hung up automatically, causing her to spit out a furious curse as she pulled her cell away from her ear. The words 'no signal' flashed mockingly in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and Taylor wrinkled her nose in obvious distaste as she glared daggers at the offending object.

"I'm not getting a signal," she finally growled, her hazel eyes narrowed as she mentally envisioned lighting her cell phone on fire. "Damn Verizon bastards. America's largest network my ass."

Dean had to bite back a snigger at that before he caught himself and scoffed inwardly. Dean Winchester didn't snigger. He shook his head as he made a noise that sounded somewhere between a snort and a chuckle. Much more manly.

"Use the phone in the room then," he said, pointing over at the off-white telephone resting on the bedside table in between the two beds. Taylor managed to give him a distracted smile and mouthed 'thank you' before she picked up the phone and started dialing, making sure that she put in the area code for her father's number. The phone rang twice before someone picked up.

"Dad?" Taylor asked immediately, a small smile of relief breaking across her features as she shifted slightly on the disheveled covers placed over the hotel bed. "It's me, Taylor. I just wanted to call and let you know that I'm okay."

There was a brief pause before an unfamiliar male voice spoke, and Taylor felt her heart plummet straight down to the floor as she tried not to let the cordless phone fall out of her suddenly damp hand.

"Excuse me? Is this some kind of prank? I don't know anyone by that name," the unfamiliar man stated bluntly, making very little effort to be polite. Taylor swallowed nervously, completely unaware that Dean was watching her intently.

"This is 513-492-3681, right?" she asked hesitantly, her face steadily losing any color that she may have had earlier.

"Yeah. It is. Why do you care?"

"That's my dad's cell phone number. Look, I really need to talk to him."

"Honey, there's no way that this is your old man's phone number. I've had the same number for fifteen years, and this is my house phone. I think someone's messing around with you, so why don't you be a good little brat and go bug someone else."

With that less than polite comment, the man hung up on her, leaving Taylor to pull the phone away from her ear and stare at it incredulously. How was this happening? There was no way that her dad had just decided to switch his phone number out of the blue, especially if she was missing.

"What in the hell is going on?" she whispered hoarsely as she stared down at the cordless phone before she quickly dialed Mikey's number, silently praying that her brother would pick up.

This time the phone didn't even ring before a recorded message played, a slightly metallic female voice reciting the words in a monotone voice.

"_The number you have dialed is invalid. Please check the number you dialed and try again._"

Taylor let out a strangled whimper as she hung up and stared wide-eyed at the phone, trying desperately to fight back the icy feeling of terror that was now seeping through her. She dialed her mother's number, only to have the same message play again. When she called her parents house, a perky woman who was definitely _not_ her mother answered the phone, and Taylor quickly hung up after she brightly declared that it was the 'Brigson's residence'.

Dean was staring at her now, but Taylor didn't notice as she punched in the number for Hannah's cell phone almost desperately, her lips silently forming the words 'please pick up, please pick up, please God pick up'. When the mechanical voice politely told her that the number she had dialed was invalid, Taylor felt the blood rush from her head as the room phone slipped from her suddenly slick fingers and fell to the floor. She ignored Dean's sudden demand as to what was going on as she slowly pulled her legs up to her chest and folded her arms on top of her knees before she buried her head in the warm folds of her shirtsleeves and drew in a shuddering breath.

What was going on?

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Ah hah! The first official chapter is finished, and poor Taylor is freaked.

I'm so mean to my characters.

Anyways, I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed and favorited for taking the time to check out this story, especially since it's an OC story and a good portion of those out there are complete and utter crap. So, thank you.

There's nothing much in the way of announcements, so on to the reviews.

**Reviews:**

MyDarkSideHasAWayOfHerOwn: It's a TV show that airs on CW, and it basically deals with two brothers going out and kicking the collective asses of things that go bump in the night. And yes, Ryan is a jerk. Not to mention the fact that he's also a snotty little rich boy jock… and a cultist. It's a scary mix, believe me.

januarysunshine13: I'm glad that you liked the beginning. No, Taylor isn't the kind of girl to be a damsel in distress, but she can get freaked out. And, as you probably saw, she does have a rather nasty fear of Rottweilers. She's only bitchy to people who really piss her off, so no worries for now. Dean and Sam are perfectly safe from her wrath.

TrueLoveAlways16: I did. Hope you like the chapter.

moonlightmusic: Wow, thanks. I'm glad that I was able to get you interested in my story. I know that there are a lot of really bad OC stories out there, which is why I always try to at least make _one_ that's worth reading. Yes, Ryan is human (unfortunately), so no salt and burn or holy water for him. And things aren't going to be really explained for a while.

Starpossum: Thanks. I was really worried about keeping them in character… actually, I still am. And I'm glad that you like my story so far.

hyourin-kusabana: I'm glad that you like it.

Silvaria: Oh, way cool. So, how is this different from my other stories? I'm just curious. And I will work on my other stuff, once I'm not so frustrated with everything. I'm P. at 'A Twist In Fate' because my entire fifth chapter got deleted when I was almost done with it, so now I have to try and remember what I wrote in it, and I'm just exhausted with 'What One May Never See'. I'm not going to quit it, but I do need to take a bit of a break for a while so I can go over how I want it to end, because I never really thought about that before.

Anyways, thank you everyone for reviewing, and I'll see you the next chapter.


	3. Chapter Two: Nothing Ever Goes

"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door." – Paul Beatty

**Chapter Two:**

**Nothing Ever Goes The Way It Should**

"No…" Taylor whispered hoarsely as she stared unseeingly at the wall ahead of her, her breath coming in short, frightened gasps. "This isn't happening."

She was completely unaware of the rather disturbed look that she was currently receiving from Dean as she bit down on her lip, trying to keep herself from crying. Some guy she didn't know had answered her father's cell phone, someone else was staying in the house she grew up in, and her mom's, brother's, and best friend's cell numbers were all invalid. Just what in the hell was going on?

Taylor swallowed uneasily as she tried to take in deep, even breaths so she wouldn't hyperventilate. The last thing she needed right now was to pass out.

Before she could even begin to think of a semi-logical reason as to why her friend and family would just drop off the face of the earth, a large hand grabbed her shoulder, causing Taylor to look up at Dean with wide eyes, noting the somewhat uneasy expression on his face as he stared at her intently.

"What just happened?" he asked in a no-nonsense tone, his green eyes narrowing slightly. Taylor hesitated for a second, wondering what she should say, before she noticed the anger slowly starting to emerge at her silence.

In some weird way, it was almost like what Mikey did when she refused to tell him that something was wrong.

"I don't know," she finally admitted quietly as she raked a hand through her messy hair uneasily. "I called my dad's cell phone, but he wasn't the one who picked up. Someone that I've never even heard of before answered my house phone, and I was told by some stupid machine that both my brother's cell phone and house phone were invalid numbers. Not to mention that the exact same thing happened when I called my mom's cell, and my roommate's cell. I know they haven't changed their numbers, so I don't know what the hell is going on."

Dean arched an eyebrow almost incredulously as he stared at the young woman, wondering just what she was talking about. People's numbers didn't just change out of the blue like that, nor did they just magically become invalid. Just when he was about to start asking what she was talking about, Sam entered the room, holding a brown paper bag boldly emblazoned with twin yellow arches in his left hand.

"Hey, what'd I miss?" the taller man asked, taking in the scene before him. Dean was looking none too please as he stood up, and Taylor looked as though she was having another freak-out session. The youngest Winchester let out a soft sigh as he gave his brother a reproving look, who responded by shrugging and giving him a look of his own that plainly said 'I didn't do anything'.

"Taylor tried to call her folks, but apparently the phones are being a pain in the ass," Dean stated nonchalantly, and Sam detected the undertone of 'and something not right is going on' in his voice. He cocked an eyebrow as he mouthed 'Supernatural?', and was rewarded with an annoyed frown and yet another shrug.

"Well, maybe we can try again later," he suggested as he gave Taylor what he hoped was a reassuring smile, making the woman grin weakly as she ran a hand through her hair once again. "I brought breakfast."

"Food is always good," Taylor joked before she glanced over at Dean, offering him a somewhat sheepish smile. "Look, I'm sorry for freaking out like that. I probably just dialed wrong, or didn't put in the proper 'exit' number that all of these stupid places seem to have. It… it's just that _everything_ seems to be going wrong, and then when I don't think of something and I'm trying to fix this… it just makes everything seem worse."

"Don't worry. Everything will work out in the end," Sam pointed out kindly as he gave Taylor a small grin. The woman nodded in agreement before she let out a weary sigh and started running her hands through her long hair in a vain attempt to return it to some semblance of order.

"That's easy for you to say. You're not the one who's going to have to deal with a panicked roommate," she muttered dryly while tugging at a particularly stubborn snarl. "Hannah is so going to chew my ass out once she finds out that I'm perfectly fine, except for being a little ticked off."

"Ticked off? I was thinking more along the lines of pissed," Dean said as he gave the younger woman a somewhat questioning look. "I know I'd most definitely be pissed if some a-hole knocked me out and dragged me across five states."

"I'll save being pissed off for when I get to look that bastard Ryan in the eyes… right before I punch him right in the middle of his rage-inspiring face," Taylor commented as she suddenly smirked darkly at the thought before she returned to running her fingers through her hair. "According to my brother I have a mean right hook."

"So you take martial arts or something then?" Sam asked curiously as he dug through the MacDonald's bag. Taylor looked over at him before she shook her head, her lips twitching up into a small smile.

"Nope, Mikey just taught me how to fight, that's all. And as I stated before, I'm definitely going to kick Ryan's stupid, arrogant ass for pulling this stupid little stunt," she growled threateningly before she offered a slightly sheepish smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to rant. I just have a bit of a temper, that's all, so I usually tend to start ranting up a storm when I'm mad."

"Try taking a deep breath and counting to ten," Dean suggested with a shrug. "Or swearing. Whatever floats your boat."

Taylor cocked an eyebrow as she stared at the older man for several seconds, a look of obvious bewilderment flashing across her face, before she cracked a sardonic grin

"'When angry, count to ten, and when very angry, swear'?" she asked before disbelievingly she started to snicker softly. "Oh man, and I thought my brother was the only one lame enough to use that line."

"Or maybe your brother met Dean," Sam suggested, and Taylor rolled her eyes.

"Somehow, I don't think so. Not unless you guys lived in Portland at one point or another. And if he had, well… I don't think he would have forgotten Mikey. He's pretty hard to forget, especially since he could probably tackle a bull and win."

"But would he?"

"I hope not. I really don't want to ever have to collect 'smear of Mikey' up off the ground just because he decided to be an idiot," she muttered fervently. "The good thing though is that his bouts of idiocy have pretty much disappeared now that he's out of college."

"Really now?" Dean said archly as he glanced over at Sam, an inquiring smirk creeping its way across his face. The taller man rolled his eyes and shook his head as he cast a halfhearted glance upwards, almost as though he was inquiring as to what he had done to deserve this kind of irritation.

"Yeah, anyways, thanks again for helping me out, and I'm sorry for freaking out like that," Taylor offered as she sat back down on the bed. "I just get… stressed sometimes, and since this goes above and beyond the usual level of crap that I have to deal with, I guess I just forget that freaking out's not gonna help me with anything."

"No problem," he stated simply before he sauntered over to the table and reached into the MacDonald's bag, pulling out some kind of breakfast sandwich. "Sammy over here would forget his head if it wasn't attached."

"Hey! I would not. And it's Sam, not Sammy. Sammy is a chubby seven-year old."

Taylor chuckled softly as she shook her head, muttering something about boys never changing.

"You know, I swear that you two are related or something the way you guys go at each other," she said with a faint grin, only to yelp as Sam tossed a yellow-wrapped breakfast biscuit at her and she scrambled to catch it.

"We are," he pointed out as he turned around to focus his attention of the coffee that he had bought. "He's my pain in the ass older brother."

"It takes one to know one," Dean retorted before he took a bite of his sandwich. Taylor looked in between them for several long moments, her eyes flicking over from one Winchester to the other several time, before she frowned thoughtfully.

"You guys are brothers and you're working together on a case?" she asked finally, causing Dean to choke on his mouthful of sandwich before he shot a heated glare at Sam. "That's unusual."

"Well, Dean had a case similar to what I'm working on now, so he came out to help me," Sam lied smoothly as he gave Dean a meaningful look, pointedly ignoring the death glare that his older brother sent him as he tried to avoid choking on his sandwich. "Actually, we think it might even be the same person involved, which is why we're working together."

Taylor looked thoughtful for a moment before she nodded in agreement and started to unwrap her biscuit, eyeing the breakfast item almost warily for a few moments before she gave a shrug and muttered 'oh, what the hell' as she bit into it. She chewed the food slowly for several seconds before she swallowed, and noticed the odd stares that she was receiving from both Winchesters.

"Picky eater?" Sam asked with a slight grin while Dean just rolled his eyes.

"I'm thinking that it's more along the lines of she's a health freak like you," he grumbled as he elbowed his younger brother. Taylor arched an eyebrow as she let out a disbelieving snort.

"No, actually I was thinking about that movie 'Supersize Me'," she stated dryly. "I was nineteen when I had to watch that movie in my college health class for a grade. About halfway through, I vowed I wouldn't even touch Mickey D's with a twenty foot pole, much less eat there. It wasn't as though I ate it very often anyways, but… that little experiment with the fries and the burgers pretty much killed off any appetite I ever had for fast food of any kind."

Sam actually smiled at the comment while Dean just cocked an eyebrow.

"What kind of person doesn't like MacDonald's?" he asked in an affronted tone. Taylor gave a distinctly unladylike snort as she took another bite of her bacon and egg biscuit before she responded.

"Me, duh."

"You do know that you speak blasphemy, right?"

"No, I'm just not very fond of the grease from Mac and Don's Diner. I'm not complaining, but there's a difference," Taylor stated as she held up her index finger, struggling vainly to repress the smirk that threatened to break out across her face. "And thank you for the food by the way. You really didn't have to do this."

"There's coffee too," Sam offered as he held up a cup of the afore-mentioned beverage, earning a short laugh from the woman as she leaned forward and took it from his hands. "Besides, it wouldn't have been fair to get food for just the two of us and eat it in front of you. What were you expecting us to do?"

"Wait until morning and then boot me out on my ass," Taylor commented blithely before she took a long pull of the hot coffee, making a wry face as she did so. "Ahh… blessed caffeine. I'm starting to feel better already. Soon the world will start to make sense again."

"Uh-oh, it looks like we have another coffee junkie on our hands," Dean quipped sarcastically, and Taylor almost snorted coffee out her nose as she tried to bite back a snicker.

"No, not a coffee junkie. That's my brother's area of expertise. I'm a Mountain Dew junkie. Coffee tastes like crap, which is why I usually don't drink it, but I really need the caffeine right now, so I don't really care what it tastes like," she corrected before she sipped at the beverage once again.

"I wouldn't insult coffee too much if I were you. We practically live off the stuff," Dean muttered. Taylor cocked an eyebrow as she finished eating another bite of her sandwich before she turned around to face the older man.

"Mikey told me once that coffee was an acquired taste," she said with a faint grin, although it slowly widened into a full-blown smirk as she continued. "I told him that if something tasted like a small animal decided to commit suicide in my mouth then I sure as heck wasn't going to try to acquire a taste for it. And then he was all 'That's why fifteen-year olds didn't drink coffee; because they didn't appreciate it'."

Both Winchesters stared at her for a few moments before Sam just shook his head.

"You brother sounds… interesting," he finally ventured, and Taylor let out a soft sigh as she reached up and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Interesting wouldn't be the term I'd use to describe him. Deranged, messed up, off his rocker… yeah, I'd use those, but not interesting. The man played football in high school and college. I keep telling him that all those hits to the head have scrambled his brains, but he never listens to me."

"So he's a jock," Dean summed up flatly, earning a somewhat annoyed look from Taylor before she took another bite of her food, this one considerably larger than the previous ones.

"Ex-jock actually. He's a doctor that specializes in treating sports injuries now," she pointed out once she had swallowed the biscuit. "He usually deals with football players, but he treats other kinds of athletes too."

"So why would a football player teach his kid sister how to fight?" the hunter asked with a slight frown. Taylor shrugged as she finished up her breakfast and wadded up the wrapper before tossing it somewhat awkwardly at the trash can in the corner of the room. The wad of yellow paper bounced off the plastic rim and fell to the floor, an action that was ignored by the three adults as they each focused their attention on the other.

"Probably because he wanted me to be able to protect myself when he wasn't there to do it himself," she muttered. "And he kind of figured out early on that I was never really one to just sit back and let someone protect me. I prefer to do the saving of my own ass, thank you very much."

Sam cocked an eyebrow as he studied Taylor, who merely stared back at him expectantly, her expression a mix of bland curiosity and defiance. The hunter noticed out of the corner of his eye that Dean was also staring at the woman intently, his eyebrows knitting together in concentration as he seemed to be compiling a mental list of some kind about their strange guest. Knowing Dean, it was probably whether or not the girl, if she could be called that, was something supernatural, or just one incredibly misplaced woman like she claimed to be.

"So, last night you mentioned having history class," Sam hedged. Taylor glanced over at him, holding his gaze for a few seconds, before she returned her attention to the cell phone she had pulled out of her pocket and was now trying to coax into working.

"Before you ask, yes, I'm in school. I'm a senior at Portland University, and I'm majoring in forestry and ecology. Actually, I'm on the swim team too, which is pretty interesting, seeing as my coach is an obsessed nut when it comes to training and staying in shape over the off season," she said thoughtfully, not noticing the shocked looks that the brothers exchanged at this particular piece of information.

"You're a college student?" Sam queried hesitantly as he glanced over at Taylor, who gave both men a somewhat scornful look that could only be described as plainly stating 'duh', although it soon shifted to one of extreme embarrassment once she realized that there was no possible way they could have known that.

"Yeah, I am. If all goes well, hopefully I'll be graduating at the end of this semester," she offered as she reached up and started to rub her upper arm, her fingers digging into the familiar warm flannel of her shirt. "I'm not usually one to dance around singing 'I'm free, I'm free!' after finals, but I'm starting to think it'll be more than okay to make an exception this year. I don't care if my teachers think I'm crazy."

"They're gonna think you're crazy no matter what," Dean muttered with a roll of his eyes. "That's just how teachers are."

"Good point. Hence me saying I won't give a crap."

Taylor flashed Dean and Sam a slightly strained, but still cocky grin as she crossed her arms in front of her chest, before her eyes widened in realization and she paled slightly.

"Son of a **bitch**!" she snarled before she reached up and ran her right hand down her face, hazel eyes narrowing into a decidedly pissed-off glare as she glowered at the innocent wall in front of her.

"What?" Sam asked as he looked at the young woman, thinking for a moment that she had remembered something involving how she had gotten there.

"I'm going to kill him," the woman hissed through gritted teeth, her expression twisted into a mask of absolute fury. "I don't care what happens to me afterwards, but I swear to god I am going to horrifically murder that misbegotten spawn of a sewer rat. Today's the 1st, right?"

Dean and Sam exchanged confused looks before the elder Winchester glanced over at the tiny calendar propped up on the end table, noting that it was actually the third of August, and it was Friday to boot. Somehow he got the feeling that Taylor wasn't going to be very happy once she learned the date.

"Actually, it's the third," he stated flatly, and was rewarded with Taylor going white once again, only this time it was clearly from rage.

For several seconds the woman was unable to form an even remotely coherent sentence before she finally made an incredibly violent motion in midair and spat out a long list of furious obscenities as she shot up to her feet and started pacing in front of her bed. Sam arched an eyebrow when he recognized a few profanities that definitely weren't in English, mildly impressed that the woman even knew something in another language.

"_Merde_! _Scheise_! _Daingit_! Son of a **fucking** bitch! That _scheisen_-faced _lasboc_! That… that _dìolain_! Jesus… _**faigh muin**_!!"

It took a while for Taylor to finally become inarticulate with rage once again, much to the immense relief of both Winchesters. Dean was sitting there on the edge of his bed, both eyebrows arched almost to the point of becoming a permanent part of his hairline, and Sam was both grudgingly impressed and appalled at the woman's language, and they had both grown up around their dad, a marine. Taylor was most definitely capable of giving even a sailor an incredibly through lesson in choice language when she was mad.

Finally, the young woman seemed to calm down enough to merely take in a deep breath before she let out a frustrated sigh and sank down on the disheveled sheets, running a hand through her hair agitatedly.

"So, I guess that's a bad thing then?" Dean finally asked once he was certain that Taylor wasn't about to go off on another swearing tangent, and received an incredibly filthy look in response.

"That just means that I've been out cold for over two days," she growled darkly as she clenched the thick denim fabric of her jeans tightly, making her knuckles turn a bloodless white. "Which already pisses me off, but on top of that, I had a test yesterday in one of my classes. Obviously I missed it, since I **wasn't there**, but that's not the worst part. The worst part is the fact that it was worth **one third** of my grade. I'm now failing a class because Ryan thought that it would be cute to dump my ass halfway across the country!!!"

Sam blanched sympathetically, fully understanding the reason behind the woman's vehemence now. If she failed the class, it would probably put her behind by a semester, and she would no longer be able to graduate at the time she had planned on. And, if she was going to school on a scholarship, she would probably lose her scholarship as well.

"Maybe your teacher will let you make it up once you get back?" he suggested. "You were abducted. That's a valid excuse for missing a class."

"Oh, if only," Taylor scoffed as she let out a world-weary sigh. "Unfortunately, this is the class with the teacher who hates my guts. That evil hag never lets anyone make up a test; even in they're stuck in the hospital, puking up blood."

"Don't exaggerate. No one's that heartless," Sam rebuked mildly, trying to lighten up the tension. Taylor just made an audible noise obvious disbelief as she shook her head.

"No, I'm being serious," she muttered tiredly. "One of the guys in my class this year was in a car crash last year, and he was stuck in the hospital with some really nasty internal injuries, which made him barf up blood. He tried to get my teacher to either bring the test in to the hospital, or let one of his friends bring it there so he could take it, and she refused. Apparently she told him that he either had to show up in her classroom at the appointed time to take the test, or he would fail. Obviously he failed; otherwise he wouldn't be in class again with me this year."

Sam blinked as he stared at the woman almost incredulously for a few seconds before he arched his eyebrows.

"How is that woman still even able to teach? I thought the NEA, or even the school, would have gone after her for doing something like that," the man mused as he frowned at the thought. Taylor just shook her head and let out a sigh as she leaned back slightly, planting her hands behind her on the mattress so she wouldn't fall flat on her back.

"Apparently her husband's a lawyer, so you do the math."

A long stretch of silence followed this statement before Dean made a face the could only be described as saying 'okay' as he finished up his own respective breakfast sandwich and tossed the wrapper in the trash, only his actually made it into the can.

"Well then, now that sharing time is over, what do you say we get back to finding out how to get in touch with your folks so we can send you home?" he asked in a manner that seemed slightly off to Taylor.

It was almost as though he couldn't wait to get her out of their hair. Not that she really blamed Dean though: she didn't want to be here stuck in some motel room with two men that she really didn't know any more than they probably wanted to be stuck with some freaked out college kid. The woman frowned slightly before she let out a soft sigh and pulled her cell phone back out of her pocket, turning it back on and inspecting the screen closely to see if she had any missed calls before she set it down beside her on the bed.

"Still no service," she announced wearily, a faint hint of irritation coloring her voice as she shot a dirty look at the device. Her phone had never failed her before, so this new development of crapping out on her for no discernable reason was really starting to piss her off. Not to mention the fact that her phone wasn't even a year old yet and it was already acting like a worthless piece of shit.

Once this was all over, she was so switching to AT & T. Screw Verizon and their supposed 'largest network'.

"What network are you on?" Sam asked curiously, and was rewarded with an irritable scowl as Taylor reached over to the night table that sat in between the two beds and snatched up the complementary notepad that sat there, as well as the typical crappy pen that came with it.

"Verizon," she growled as she picked up her phone and turned it sideways before she flipped open, revealing the keyboard that Dean hadn't noticed when she had tried to use the device earlier. The hunter cocked an eyebrow curiously as he took in the phone's strange design, and noticed out of the corner of his eye that Sam had spotted the anomaly as well, the younger Winchester's eyes narrowing slightly as he stared at the phone.

As far as either one of them knew, none of the cell phones out on the market now had that particular design.

"Hey, what year is your phone?" Sam inquired suddenly. Taylor looked momentarily puzzled at the question before she gave a faint shrug and opened up her contact list.

"2008," she said offhandedly as she grabbed the pen and jolted down the first number on her contact list on the notepad, completely unaware of the disbelieving stares that she was now receiving from both Winchesters. "It's an LG enV2, if that helps you any. I just got it for Christmas last year, so it's practically brand new. That's why this is pissing me off; my phone's not even a year old, so it shouldn't be doing this."

Sam stared hard at Taylor for several seconds, his mind going about a million miles a minute, before he opened his mouth to say something, anything. Unfortunately, Dean beat him to the punch.

"Wait a second, what was the date that you went out hiking?" the older man interjected, his green eyes narrowed in slight suspicion as he stared intently at Taylor, who continued to jolt down phone numbers. "Give me the day, month, year, everything."

"Saturday, October 31st, 2009," she replied distractedly without even looking up before she glanced over at her phone and scrolled down her contact list, her eyebrows knitting together as she gave a slightly ironic smirk. "Its clichéd, I know, going missing on Halloween. I really should have listened to Hannah when she told me that all of the weirdoes are out and about, but I thought I was going to be okay since all I was doing was going hiking. Obviously I was wrong."

Sam and Dean both exchanged cautious glances at this: Sam looking confused and worried, while Dean just looked annoyed, and a bit weirded out.

"How old are you?" Dean asked quietly, a slight hint of steel hidden in his words. "When were you born?"

"I was born on December 14th, 1985," Taylor offered, although something in a small corner of her mind was nagging incessantly that there was something very wrong about this particular line of questioning. The woman brushed off the thought, merely dismissing it as nerves over the unusual situation. "I'm twenty-three, but I'll be turning twenty-four in about six weeks."

Sam opened his mouth to say something once again, only to have Dean plant a hand over his younger brother's mouth in a not-so-subtle gesture to shut up, the stern look on his face indicating that he didn't want the younger man to say one word on the subject. Both of them knew without a doubt that it was August 3rd, 2007, but for some strange reason Taylor thought that it was November 3rd, 2009. That was a twenty-seven month gap in between the two dates.

This was seriously weird, even for them.

Dean frowned slightly as he stared at Taylor for a few seconds before he got to his feet and strode across the room over towards the chair where he had hung his leather jacket from, grabbing the garment and shrugging it on as he approached the front door. Sam watched his older brother curiously before he understood what the other hunter was about to do.

When things got this weird, it was usually time to call Bobby.

"Where are you going?" Taylor asked curiously as she looked up from her phone list, hazel eyes revealing the faint hint of worry that didn't show up on her face.

Dean examined the woman's face for a brief moment, searching for any hint of a lie or insanity, or even demonic possession, only to come away with nothing. The only thing that he could gather from the worried and hopeful expression on Taylor Harding's face was that she was putting all of her trust in him and Sam to help her correct this situation, the same unconditional, unwavering trust that was usually reserved for actual officers of the law, or older siblings.

That just made it even more of a bitch to flat-out lie to her face.

"I'm going to put in a call to a buddy of mine who helps out with missing persons up in that area of the US," he stated as he stuck his hand into his jacket pocket, fighting the childish urge to cross his fingers. "He has some connections in several of the Oregon PDs, so he might be able to help out."

Whatever reaction he was expecting to receive from this statement, he most certainly wasn't expecting to see Taylor brighten up visibly as she looked up at him, relief flashing visibly across her features.

"Tell him that once he gets in touch with the Portland PD he needs to talk to Cole Andrews," she offered helpfully. "Cole's one of my brother's best friends, so he's probably involved in the search one way or another. Knowing Mikey, Cole was probably one of the first people he called once he found out I was missing. Well, after my parents I mean."

Sam bit back a groan at this piece of information, and Dean had to fight to keep his expression neutral. It was just their luck for them to find a girl who had connections to the actual police. Judging from the way Taylor talked about this 'Cole', she had probably known him since she was a little kid. This just kept getting better and better.

"I'll definitely pass that along," Dean promised before he looked over at Sam, who nodded once in agreement, already understand what his brother was about to ask him to do. "I want you to call everyone on your contact list without killing your cell phone battery, which I'm going to assume is why you wrote it out instead of just using the list on your phone. See if you can get a hold of anyone to let them know that you're okay while I take care of this. Sam, I want you to help her. Maybe your cell phone will work better than this piece of crap motel phone."

Taylor snickered softly in agreement, while Sam just shook his head and sighed.

"Oh boy, we get to play telephone tag," the swimmer quipped sarcastically as she started turning the pen over in her hands absentmindedly, her lips quirking up into a slight smirk. "Just how I wanted to spend my day."

"It could be worse. You could be taking a test," Dean said as he gave Taylor one of his trademark grins. The brunette stared at him flatly before she rolled her eyes upwards.

"Dude, that was a low blow," she deadpanned before she let out a sigh and stared down at the list of phone numbers she now held in her hands. "So not cool."

"I live to serve," the hunter joked before his expression became serious once again. "Hey, do you have your ID on you?"

"Which one? My driver's license or my student ID?"

"Both, although any other forms of identification would probably be helpful as well."

Taylor let out a long sigh as she dug around in her pocket before she withdrew a plain brown, slightly battered-looking leather wallet and held it up in the air, earning bemused looks from both brothers. It was obviously not the style of wallet that either one of them would ever picture a girl using, seeing as it was a man's wallet, and it had obviously seen a great deal of use. The woman flushed slightly as she tossed the item over to Dean, who caught it easily, before she averted her eyes.

"It was a gift from one of my cousins, back when he was still young enough to not know the difference between a guy's wallet and a girl's wallet," she offered by way of explanation, understanding the odd looks for what they were. "Besides, it's really durable. I've had that thing for almost eight years now, and it still hasn't died on me. The last one I had fell apart after less than a year."

"Well, a person's wallet can say a lot about them," Dean commented with a slight smirk. Taylor snorted as she grinned good-naturedly at the man.

"And mine screams 'tomboy'," she pointed out, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards in wry amusement. Dean didn't say anything as he turned around and headed back towards the motel room door, although he did give an offhanded wave before he shut the door behind him.

"Play nice you two," he drawled sarcastically right before the cheap door closed all the way, blocking off any view that anyone in the room may have had of him. The hunter walked down the narrow walkway outside the rooms until he reached the stairs – the same set of stairs that he and Sam had chased Taylor down only ten hours before – and pulled out his cell phone as he started down the steps, quickly punching in Bobby Singer's number.

The phone rang twice before Bobby answered.

"What is it?" he asked gruffly. Dean cocked an eyebrow before a faint smirk crossed his face. Caller ID was a wonderful thing sometimes.

"Hey Bobby, its Dean," he began as he flipped open Taylor's wallet and stared down at the various forms of identification stored inside. "Listen man, we just found something really weird, even for us. And when I say weird, I'm not talking the normal kind of fugly weird. I was wondering if you could look some stuff up for us…"

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"Well that was fun," Taylor growled as she vehemently hit the off button of the motel phone and glared down at the device. "I just got my ass chewed out by some mom because I called."

"And why did she chew you out?" Sam asked as he looked up from the now-diminished list of telephone numbers. There were only three numbers written down left that were not crossed out, and all of the ones that they had already called either bore the label of 'invalid number' written next to them, or the names of whoever had picked up the phone _instead_ of the person that the number was supposed to belong to. So far, Sam and Taylor had encountered more invalid numbers than actual people picking up.

"Because her son answered the phone, and apparently I sounded just like his older sister, who died in a car crash in June," she drawled, sarcasm dripping from her voice as she reached over and snatched up the pen before she scratched out the number, as well as the words 'Nicki Morris'. "I tried to explain that I was trying to call my friend, but she wouldn't listen to me."

Sam winced sympathetically as he looked over at Taylor, who had a fairly murderous expression on her face as she glared daggers at the floor. He had no idea how hard this probably was for her, calling everyone she knew, and not being able to get in contact with a single one.

"The last number you gave me was invalid, so that just means that we have to call these last two numbers, and then we're done," he offered with a faint smile, trying to coax the woman out of her foul mood, which had grown progressively worse after each phone call. "Once we've finished, I can put in a call to the phone company to see if there was any way for someone to have tampered with the numbers."

"Pardon my French, but that's pretty frickin' miraculous for someone to pull off," Taylor grumbled. "God only knows what kind of money they'd need to pull something like this, especially the amount of bribes needed… that is assuming that someone else did this. The weird thing is that whenever I talk to someone at their home number, they insist that it's been their number for several years."

Sam frowned thoughtfully as he glanced over at Taylor, who was now studying the two remaining numbers left on the list, a look of concern on her face as she bit her lip nervously. She looked as though she was silently debating against doing something.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he peered over the woman's shoulder at the two remaining numbers, and noticed that the one that held her attention was labeled 'Grandma MacFinn'. The area code put it somewhere in Washington.

"You really don't want to know," the swimmer replied fervently. "Trust me."

"Maybe I can help."

Taylor shot him a disbelieving look as she shook her head. "Somehow I don't think so. Not unless you specialize in handling deranged Scottish grandmothers."

Sam did wince sympathetically at this. "You don't want to call her?"

"I'd sooner jump in front of a moving bus."

"What happened?"

"Long story," Taylor replied tersely. "Here's the short version: she dragged me over to Scotland over the summer a few years ago and wanted me to get married at nineteen, not to mention the fact that she told me that I shouldn't even bother to go to school that fall. She even went as far as trying to arrange a marriage for me with the grandson of one of her friends."

Sam stared incredulously at the woman, who looked up at him and smiled thinly before she shrugged.

"And I thought my family was messed up," he finally muttered, earning a short, harsh laugh from Taylor as she rocked back onto her heels, a sardonic grin twitching about her lips.

"Dude, I'm pretty sure that the level of weirdness in my family tops yours," she chuckled as she fiddled with the pen, not noticing the 'yeah right' expression that briefly flashed across the man's face at her comment. "My mom thinks my grandma is going senile, and I agree with her. These past five years have been a pain in my ass, because I swear to God, every time I'm home for the holidays, she comes up to me and demands to know when I'm going to get married."

Sam started chuckling as he cocked an eyebrow at Taylor, who frowned indignantly in response and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Maybe she's worried about not having great-grandchildren around," he suggested with a grin, earning an eye roll from the woman.

"Oh, if only," she groaned. "But that's not it, because Mikey got married four years ago, and she barely even cared. In fact, if anything, she got worse. Out of my entire family, my grandmother is the only person who is **not** excited that my brother's wife is going to be having a baby soon. She just keeps on demanding on when I'm going to 'do the right thing and bring a nice Scottish boy home, and take up the appropriate role of being a wife and mother instead of wasting my time in school'. The last time she said that, at Easter, my mom ended up blowing a gasket and telling her to leave."

The hunter gave Taylor a sympathetic grin as he looked down at the dreaded number. "How about I call her and see if the number works? That way, you can call the other person-"

"Todd Harding, one of my older cousins."

"And then we're done. And that way you don't have to talk to her unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Sounds like a plan," Taylor muttered before she flashed the hunter an apologetic smile. "For the record, I apologize in advance for any harassment on her part. Just remember that she's senile. That usually keeps me from killing her myself, or at least from trying to throttle her over the phone."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sam promised as he started dialing the number, inwardly bracing himself for what promised to be an interesting experience. The corner of his mouth twitched up into a wry smirk as an odd thought hit him: dealing with insane elderly ladies was hardly any different from what he usually did, only at least this one probably wasn't a witch.

When an elderly man picked up the phone instead of the infamous 'psycho grandma', Sam automatically assumed that it was Taylor's grandfather who had answered.

"Hello sir, is this the MacFinn residence?" he asked politely, noting offhandedly that Taylor was watching him nervously, looking almost as though she was ready to snatch his cell phone away from him the second she thought he was being harassed. Apparently she wasn't going to call her cousin until she was certain that he was going to be okay.

"_No. And who the hell is this?"_ the man who had picked up growled angrily. _"Are you one of those damn Krauts? I kicked your asses back in Germany sixty years ago, and I'll do it again in a heartbeat if you want to-"_

Sam didn't give the man a chance to finish his incredibly rude, and no doubt, graphic, tirade, and promptly hung up.

"What did she-?" Taylor began, her expression darkening visibly before Sam cut her off.

"I got an angry old man instead of an angry Scottish woman," he stated bluntly, and upon seeing the bewildered look on the woman's face, chose to elaborate further. "Apparently he thought I was a 'Kraut' and started threatening to kick my ass."

The swimmer was silent for several seconds, her eyes wide, before she was able to form a coherent thought once again.

"Well, I can't say that I expected that one," she admitted bemusedly, earning an odd look from Sam.

"But wasn't that your grandfather who picked up?" he prodded, only to have Taylor let out an incredulous snort as she stared at him.

"Uh, no," she stated seriously. "That would be kind of hard since my grandpa's been dead for a while. He passed away from prostate cancer in '02, just a few weeks before my seventeenth birthday. My mom thinks that part of the reason why Grandma's lost it the way she has over the past few years, because Gramps isn't there to keep her in line anymore."

"Oh. Then who was it?"

Taylor looked thoughtful for a few moments before she gave a noncommittal shrug and leaned back against the wall behind the bed, a small smile twitching about her lips as she tried not to laugh.

"I honestly don't know, but I think I'd rather deal with an angry WWII veteran than my gran's harping any day," she quipped with a slight smirk, although her smile soon faded as another thought hit her, and the woman immediately let out a frustrated sigh as she reached up and raked a hand through her hair. "Dammit, that means that's a wrong number too. Just what the hell is going on?! How in the hell can all of these people… my friends, my family… everything… just… _vanish_? It's like they never even existed."

Sam watched Taylor closely for a few moments before he let out a soft sigh and reached over to gently pat the woman on the back. She tensed up for a second at the unexpected contact before she forced herself to relax. Sam noticed the action, and gave her a somewhat concerned look.

"Nervous?" he asked kindly, and Taylor laughed wearily in response.

"I was thinking something more along the lines of completely and thoroughly freaked out, but yeah, that one works too," she admitted before glancing over at Todd's phone number, frowning as she stared intently at the hurried scrawl that covered the majority of the page's surface. "I… I'm almost scared to try calling Todd. I'm afraid that he won't pick up, just like everyone else. And the thought of that scares me even more than the fact that I'm stuck out in some small town in a state that I've never even visited before."

"Well, you'll never know for sure until you try," Sam pointed out. Taylor looked up at him and nodded hesitantly, although the hunter could clearly see the worry in her eyes. After a few seconds, she picked up the hotel phone once again and dialed her cousin's number before she put the cordless phone up to her ear.

Taylor felt any hopes that she may have secretly harbored sink when the now-dreaded recording stating that she had dialed an invalid number played instead of her cousin picking up, or even getting his answering machine. She sat there on the bed and stared numbly off into a space, the color slowly draining from her face as she hesitantly pulled the cordless way from her ear and stared down at it almost dumbly before she finally hit the 'off' button and set it back down in its cradle.

"Invalid number," Taylor finally managed to force out tonelessly, a hurt look flickering across her pale features before she reached up and ran her hand down her face. Sam shot the woman a sympathetic look before he crossed off Todd's number, thus completing the list.

The two young adults sat there for several long moments, with Taylor staring unseeingly ahead at the wall as she tried to cope with the idea that _no one_ was responding to her phone calls, and Sam struggling furiously to think of a logical, or even illogical, way for the entirety of someone's family to just fall off the face of the earth like Taylor's family seemed to have done. Just when the hunter was about to speak, Dean came into the room, the dark frown that was plastered onto his face sliding away seamlessly the moment he caught sight of Taylor.

Apparently whatever Bobby had told him hadn't been good.

"So, how'd things go?" he asked, trying hard to keep his tone light. Sam cocked an eyebrow as he gave his older brother a questioning look, and was rewarded with an annoyed frown, accompanied by a meaningful glance in Taylor's direction.

"We couldn't get a hold of anyone," Sam stated simply. His words seemed to startle Taylor out of her listless daze, and she noticed for the first time that Dean had returned.

"What did your friend say?" she said suddenly while straightening up, a hopeful look entering her eyes as she stared at the older man. Dean didn't say anything for a few moments before he let out a long sigh and tossed her wallet back to her.

"He said that he's get back to me once he found something," he finally muttered offhandedly. "It looks like we're giving you a ride home though."

Taylor froze momentarily, confusion evident on her face as she finished tucking her wallet back into the pocket of her jeans before she looked up at both hunters.

"You are?"

Sam almost choked as he looked over at Dean like he had taken leave of his senses.

"We are?" he echoed in a slightly strained manner.

"Yep. Once we finish things up here, we're heading to Oregon."

Sam stared at his brother in utter disbelief, the words 'what the hell are you thinking' almost making their way out of his mouth before Dean shot him a warning look that practically screamed 'I'll tell you everything later'. The youngest Winchester closed his mouth and cocked an eyebrow, his eyebrows knitting together was he frowned thoughtfully.

Whatever it was that was going on with Taylor, it must have been pretty big to get Dean all worked up like this.

Taylor blinked a few times, a look of absolute confusion mixed with a fair bit of unease crossing her face, before she finally seemed to work up enough courage to speak.

"Um, okay. When will you be finished with whatever you're doing here?" she asked politely, although part of her was inwardly doing the Snoopy dance at the idea of going home, even if it was a couple of cops giving her a ride there.

"Probably sometime tonight," Dean remarked dismissively, although Sam could tell that he was trying to think of a way to get the woman out of the room for a little bit so he could speak with his brother in private. Taylor made a small noise under her breath as she nodded slowly in agreement, her lips twisting slightly into a pensive frown.

"Okay. How long will it take for you guys to get to Portland?"

"About four days."

Sam started slightly at that information before Dean mouthed 'Bobby' at him, and understood his brother's plan almost immediately. They were going to make a pit stop at Bobby's once they hit South Dakota, probably for whatever information the old hunter could dig up on Taylor in that period of time.

The woman appeared to mull things over for a little bit before she grinned sheepishly at them, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her sleep-wrinkled jeans as she looked in between the brothers.

"Umm… if the trip back is going to take four days, I don't suppose that you guys could let me go and grab a change of clothes and some supplies today?" she asked hesitantly. "I don't want to sound like a total wimp or anything, but the idea of wearing the same clothes for almost a week doesn't sound all that great. And besides, I have my own money, so all I need are directions to the closest Target and I'll be good."

Dean looked askance at Taylor as he cocked an eyebrow, a dubious scoff managing to make its way from his throat before he cast a dismissive glance over his shoulder towards the motel room door.

"Somehow, I don't think this place is even big enough to have a Target," he muttered dryly. Taylor let out a sigh and wrinkled her nose at this particular piece of information.

"Yeah, you're probably right," she admitted before she gave a wry laugh. "I didn't even think about that."

"That's what they all say," Dean quipped with a slight smirk. "How about this: Sam goes with you into town so you can get your 'supplies', and that way you're all set. And he'll even give you a ride."

Sam scowled as he gave his brother a warning look. "And why do I have to take her?"

"Because dude, you're the one who had a girlfriend. You know all about what kind of girly 'supplies' she'll need."

Taylor gave the older Winchester a distinctly flat look, clearly unimpressed, while Sam sputtered indignantly at the comment, an embarrassed flush tainting his cheeks.

"Alrighty then. I'll go get ready to go," she muttered before she disappeared into the bathroom, shaking her head at the oddity of the entire male species. Sam waited until the door had closed all the way before he turned around to face Dean, frowning as he arched an eyebrow questioningly.

"Okay Dean, what's going on?" he demanded, taking great pains to keep his voice down so Taylor wouldn't overhear them while she was in the bathroom. "You're up to something. What did you find out?"

"I had Bobby check headlines in the entire Oregon area. There were no records of any missing people fitting that girl's description, much less any of them going missing within the past few days," the hunter stated simply, cutting straight to the chase. "And that was before I told Bobby about her whole little psychedelic 'it's October 2009' comment."

"Dean, she really thinks that it's 2009. She's not lying. Or at least she doesn't think that she's lying."

Dean frowned as he glanced over at Sam before he ran a hand agitatedly over his short hair.

"I know, that's what's bugging me," he grumbled reluctantly. "Something about this girl just isn't kosher."

Sam let out an incredulous snort as he regarded his brother with flat disbelief before he shook his head.

"And it took you this long to figure this out?" he asked sarcastically. Dean favored the taller man with a cocky smirk as he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

"No, I already knew. I was just testing you to see how long it would take you to figure it out," he boasted. Sam just rolled his eyes.

"Right. And you knew this, how?"

"Because I'm just that awesome."

Sam let out a sigh and shook his head at his brother's antics before he reached up and ran a hand through his messy brown hair. The two Winchesters stood there for several long moments, listening to Taylor move about in the bathroom, muttering things under her breath as she attempted to neaten up her appearance so that she didn't look as though she had fallen asleep in her clothes. From the sounds of things, it wasn't going so well.

"So, what do you want me to do?" Sam finally asked once it became evident that Taylor wasn't going to emerge for at least a few more minutes. Dean gave a semi-disgusted snort as he glanced over at the younger man before he pulled a wrinkled sheet of notebook paper out of his jacket pocket.

"What I want is for you to keep her busy while I look up some of this junk up," he muttered irritably, clearly not happy with the fact that he had to do 'research'. "And try to find out as much about her as you can. You can look up what I'm not able to get into once you get back."

The younger hunter frowned slightly as he took a closer look at what Dean had written down on the paper, and his eyes widened when he caught sight of a series of numbers printed down at the bottom of the page.

"You got her social security number?" he hissed incredulously as he looked up from the paper, disapproval heavily lacing his tone. Dean shrugged nonchalantly as he gently tugged the paper out of Sam's grip and folded it up before returning it to his pocket.

"It's not my fault that colleges use them as the student's ID numbers, now is it, Sammy?" he asked rhetorically. "Besides, she had it written down on this little piece of paper and stuffed behind her student ID, so obviously she had trouble remembering it. And that benefits us, because we can now look it up to see if it really belongs to her. I also got her debit card number, her dorm address and room number, and a bunch of other piddly crap that I don't know whether or not we can use."

Sam still didn't quite look convinced at his brother's line of reasoning as he gave Dean a dirty look, making the older man sigh in obvious exasperation as he rolled his eyes upwards.

"Just trust me on this one, okay Sam?" he asked softly, his eyes narrowing slightly as he glanced over at the closed bathroom door. "Something's not right about this girl, and I intend to find out what. All I need for you to do for now is keep her from suspecting anything."

Sam hesitated for a moment, and then nodded in agreement. Dean gave him a slight smirk before he very reluctantly handed over the keys to the Impala, his smirk transforming into a frown almost instantly as he gave his younger brother a warning look.

"Dude, if you do anything to the Impala while you're driving her today…" he warned, leaving the threat hanging.

"I know, I know; standard rules apply. I won't do anything to your baby, I promise."

It was at that moment that Taylor chose to reappear, still running her fingers through slightly damp hair in a vain attempt to try and neaten it up. She had managed to get all of the tangles out of her long hair, so it didn't look too bad, but it still stubbornly refused to lie flat without little flyaway strands sticking up all over the place. The woman hurried over to where her hiking boots were sitting under the chair where she had tossed them that night and grabbed them, sitting down on the edge of the bed and immediately shoving her right foot into the confines of the worn black leather before lacing it up. The process was repeated with her left boot, with Taylor tightly knotting the thick laces, before she looked up at the brothers.

Sam arched an eyebrow slightly as he scrutinized the shorter woman, a faint grin making its way across his face as he watched her let out a low growl of irritation as she tried to smooth down her hair yet again, only to fail miserably. Apparently Taylor had taken the time to wash off the dirt and grime on her face left over from her encounter with them last night, so she no longer had tracks of dirt and sap smeared across her face, and the small bits of the hedge that she had missed in her initial search the night before had all been removed from her hair.

"You presentable now?" the youngest Winchester joked, and Taylor straightened up and gave him a wry grin before she replied.

"About as ready as I'll ever be," she stated simply as she reached up and brushed some of her long bangs out of her face before tucking them behind her ear. "So, where we going?"

Sam looked taken aback for a second before he was able to respond. "Well, where do you want to go first?"

"I don't know. That's why I was asking you. I've never been here before, remember?" Taylor bluntly pointed out, causing Dean to snicker before he not-so-gently shoved the two young adults towards the door.

"Have fun, and don't kill each other," he offered smugly, giving Sam more than enough reason to shoot his elder sibling a dirty look before he followed Taylor out the motel room door. Once the two had left, and shut the door behind them, Dean let out a slightly annoyed sigh before he plunked himself down in front of Sam's laptop. He was definitely not looking forward to doing research, especially without Sam's help.

Sam was scary smart when it came to research, especially when they needed to hack into different records that weren't accessible via public library. Although in this case it was because the records needed were in a different **state**, although for some reason Dean didn't think that hospitals had people's birth certificates out for all the world to see either. So how in the hell was he supposed to get a hold of someone's public records?

Maybe a short visit to 'Busty Asian Beauties' would help the thought process along.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so now things are getting a little weirder, and Taylor's about ready to kill her cell phone provider. For those of you who can guess exactly why all of the phone numbers aren't working, and can tell me why Taylor's got the date wrong will get a giant plate of cookies.

Or a bound and gagged Dean Winchester. Whatever works for you.

Although that last one might not be available for too long, mostly because I'll need him for the next chapter. Please don't remove the gag though. It's been put there for a reason, mainly because a certain individual was being a pain in my ass while I was writing and hanging out over my shoulder. You do not want to know how many sentences I had to edit because of him.

(Glares over at Dean, who glares right back)

Anyways, I know people have been asking me what season this takes place in, and now all shall be revealed. This story takes place during the Third Season, right after the episode 'The Kids Are Alright', but before 'Bad Day At Black Rock'. I'm going to try and follow the original storyline as much as possible, but I'm also going to do my damndest to keep this story from just being a rehash of the series.

The inspirational music for this chapter was "So Far Away" by Crossfade, which is where the chapter title came from, and "Burn It To The Ground" by Nickleback. You can thank them for me getting this chapter written.

Sorry for the time it took to finish this chapter, but this week has just plain sucked for me. Both of my hamsters died, so now my room feels empty. The weird thing is that they died a week apart, exactly, but one died from an intestinal problem and the other died because of a broken leg. And they were both over two years old.

This chapter was probably a little boring, but it needed to be done. The next chapter will be when the real excitement starts, and when the shit hits the fan. See you then.

**Dictionary:**

_Merde_ – (French) shit, the only French swear word that Taylor knows

_Scheise_ – (German) fuck, one of the two German curses that Taylor once learned from a German exchange student

_Scheisen_ – (German) shit

_Daingit­_ – (Scottish Gaelic) damn it

_Lasboc_ – (Scottish Gaelic) a gelded male goat

_Dìolain_ – (Scottish Gaelic) bastard

_Faigh Muin_ – (Scottish Gaelic) fuck

**Reviews:**

hyourin-kusabana: Thank you, I'm glad that you're enjoying it so far. And yes, Taylor does have her flaws. Among them are being stubborn as hell, a quick temper, foul mouth, sick mind, and a very logical way of looking at things. Life is not going to be fun for her for the next few days.

ElzBelz01: Thank you, I'm glad that you think so. And the critiquing goes a long way, so thatnk you very much for that. As for the humor, well, that's just me being a smartass. It just comes naturally to me. I'm glad that you enjoy it though.

winchesterlover14: Umm… okay. Dean does remind Taylor of her brother, but mostly because of his smart mouth. Sorry, no romantic relationships for now. It's strictly friendship for the time being, nothing more.

januarysunshine13: I made Dean be a bit of a jerk to Taylor mostly because I looked at how he treated Ruby, and she didn't appear out of nowhere. So, if he's nasty to Ruby because she's a demon, and Hell's gunning for his soul, how would he treat some girl that just appeared out of nowhere in their motel room? As stated before, there aren't going to be any pairings for now.

MyDarkSideHasAWayOfHerOwn: Well, I guess it's a good think that I don't know Keiji then. I'd probably kill him. But my dad once came in my room and belly-flopped on top of me while I was sleeping, yelling "BANZAI!" at the top of his lungs. That definitely woke me up. It's cool though, because I love my dad. He rocks. There might be a reference to that little incident later on, so look for it. As for the dog bite, man that sucks. I've been bitten by a dog, but it was by my own, and she was playing, so it's all good. Still hurt though, and she didn't even break the skin.

lana123: Thanks. I'm glad that you like it.

Starpossum: No, Taylor is not possessed. Geez. Pretty much all of the things out there that can possess people react to either salt and/or holy water, and she passed both tests. So she's clean supernatural-wise. As for the bit with the phones… well, Taylor's kind of out of range. _Way_ out of range.

Yanza: Thanks. Yeah, Taylor's day is really starting to suck.

Peaches-Life'sSimplestTreasure: Yeah, Dean is a pervert. And normally, if Taylor had been upright at that moment and not having a major freak-out session, she would have punched him. Honestly, I would have thrown a rock at his head.

Remyi: Glad you like the story so far.

Shepherd's Purse: Thank you so much. I'm glad that you're able to follow the plot even though you've never even seen the show. And thank you for pointing out what I did right so far, because I'm always worrying that I'm not keeping Sam and Dean in character.


	4. Chapter 3: Feels Like The End

"One hell of a morning has turned into a bitch of a day!" – Jack Colton, _Romancing The Stone_

**Chapter Three:**

**Feels Like the End**

Taylor didn't really say anything as they drove into town, merely contenting herself with staring out the window of the Impala. If she ignored the glaringly obvious fact that she was sitting in the front seat of a pristine classic muscle car instead of a Jeep, she could almost pretend that her brother was the one driving instead of the lanky private investigator, and that everything was completely normal.

The woman couldn't help but repress a sardonic snort at that thought, annoyance washing through her as she glared daggers at the innocent glass in front of her. Nothing about this entire situation was even remotely close to normal. She was stuck in the upper part of **Wisconsin** for God's sake, in some pissant little town that didn't have any semblance of a chain store, except for the McDonald's out past the outskirts of town. And that wasn't even going into the fact that Ryan had _abducted_ her and miraculously managed to drug her up to the eyeballs before dumping her unconscious ass in some no-tell motel room.

Right now, the only thing she had going for her was the fact that Ryan had been a complete dipshit and left her in a room that was occupied. Maybe that was why he had chosen that room though. Maybe he had been hoping that the occupants of the room he had chosen would be blamed for his little stunt. Unfortunately for him, private detectives had a hell of a lot more credibility than some spoiled, rich-kid college athlete.

And they usually had connections with the cops too. In short, Ryan Williams' ass was grass the second Taylor got back into town. Of course, that was only assuming that the cops got their hands on him before Taylor did. Because once she saw that bastard's smug face again, all bets were off.

A sardonic smile flickered across the woman's lips as she gazed unseeingly out at the landscape, ignoring the turn of the century fishing-village charm that seemed to draw tourists to Cornucopia in droves. Sometimes, when she had been younger, she had dreamed of leaving Portland, going off to see other areas of the United States other than the state that she had grown up in. True, she had been to Scotland, but she had never really even been anywhere close to this area of the U.S. up until now. An all she wanted to do now was return to Oregon, to her normal, everyday life as an average college student.

Hell, right now she even missed her boss and co-workers, gossipy though they may be. And being a server in a semi-classy sushi restaurant was hardly glamorous, but right now she missed the normalcy and routine that it represented.

Taylor let out a low groan as she let her forehead gently hit the glass in front of her, silently wishing that she could just wake up and find out that this whole thing was nothing more than one disturbingly vivid dream. She knew that wasn't going to happen though. It was too easy.

She had already tried pinching herself on the arm when she had gone into the bathroom earlier, but that hadn't worked. And she had pinched herself _hard_, hard enough that the fingernail marks were still deeply imprinted into the underside of her lower arm.

So nope, it wasn't a dream.

Frowning thoughtfully, Taylor stared out at the town slowly going by out of the corner of her eye, inwardly growling out an annoyed curse as the slow throbbing in the back and sides of her skull that had been present that morning reappeared. She had recognized the warning signs of a migraine when she had woken up earlier, but it had gone away once she had introduced some caffeine into her system. Apparently the coffee-induced relief was only temporary.

It looked as though a pit stop at the local pharmacy for a travel-sized container of Motrin was going to be in her near future.

"Are you okay?"

The question startled Taylor, causing her head to jerk upwards as she tried to look over at Sam, only to smack the back of her head against part of the door panel. Pain washed through her skull, making the woman grit her teeth against the sickening wave of nausea that soon followed.

Apparently it really wasn't a good idea to hit your head when you already had the mother of all migraines starting to bang around inside your skull.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she managed to hiss out through clenched teeth, placing her right hand protectively on the now-sore spot as she clamped her eyes shut to block out the now painfully bright rays of sunshine. She was lying through her teeth when she said that, but who was he to know?

"You don't look like you're fine," Sam remarked pointedly, earning an exasperated groan from the woman as she placed a hand over her eyes. "In fact, you're looking a little green."

"It's just a headache. I get them every once and a while. No need to worry."

Sam cocked an eyebrow skeptically at this bit of information, giving Taylor cause to let out another low groan before she removed her hand from her eyes and gave the taller man a dirty look.

"I'm fine," she reiterated tersely. Sam shrugged as he returned his attention to the road in front of them, for all appearances giving up on the line of questioning. Taylor let out a soft sight of relief as she leaned back up against the window. She wasn't really comfortable with discussing her health with a complete stranger, even though as well-intentioned as he may be.

Silence filled the car for several moments before Sam pulled to a stop in one of the many parking spaces that lined the street. Taylor couldn't help but arch an eyebrow when she noticed that they had stopped in front of a building proudly labeled 'Bueler's Pharmacy'.

"So, how long have you been getting migraines?" Sam asked conversationally. The woman let out a long breath as she looked skyward, silently wondering if her brother had anything to do with this. At least Sam wasn't being smug about it. She still remembered the satisfied look on Mikey's face when he realized the reason behind her frequent headaches before he set a small travel-sized bottle of pain killers in her hand, telling her in the know-it-all fashion that only a brother could achieve to keep it with her in her backpack and to let him know once it was almost empty.

And she had.

"Pretty much since high school," she admitted reluctantly. "As far as my parents and I were able to figure out, I get them when the air pressure changes, usually right before a really big storm, or when I get dehydrated."

"Are you dehydrated?"

"Not to my knowledge. So that probably means that there's going to be a storm tonight." Taylor let out a long sigh before she reached up and ran a hand through her bangs, frowning at the thought. "Joy."

Sam didn't look too happy at that bit of information as he opened his door and got out of the Impala. Taylor sighed, muttering 'men' under her breath in exasperation, before she followed, making sure to hit the lock button before she shut the door behind her. The woman was pleasantly surprised when Sam held the front door to the store open for her, standing slightly off to the side so she could pass him.

Apparently chivalry and common courtesy wasn't as dead as everyone claimed it was.

"Thanks," she whispered, flashing the taller man a brief smile, before she looked around at the immaculate interior of the pharmacy. There weren't very many people in there, so the cashier perked up almost immediately when he caught sight of them entering.

"So, what do you need besides painkillers?" Sam asked finally, ignoring the cashier's rather unnerving stare. Taylor looked thoughtful for a few moments before she glanced up at him.

"Do you know if they sell sports bras here?" she finally asked bluntly, making the hunter flush slightly as he gave her a somewhat incredulous look before he responded.

"I don't know. Maybe," he offered hesitantly. Taylor seemed to notice his unease as she gave him a sheepish grin.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry," she muttered as she brought a hand up to cover her mouth, her eyes widening as she realized what she had just asked him. "Jeez, I didn't even think… sorry."

"It's okay. At least Dean's not here to hear you ask."

"Good point. Still, sorry."

"You say that a lot, don't you?"

"I have a lot to apologize for."

Sam cocked an eyebrow at her comment, watching the woman intently as she scanned the shelves in the pharmacy before she spotted what looked like the clothing section. For one moment Taylor seemed like she was going to ask him something as she glanced back over her shoulder at him before she appeared to change her mind and averted her eyes. The hunter let out a long sigh as he looked upward briefly, silently asking why Taylor had picked now of all times to be quiet.

He wasn't good with uncomfortable silences.

"Do you really believe that you have a lot to apologize for?" he asked quietly as he followed Taylor down the aisle, noting how she slowly scanned the bins and racks for what she was looking for.

"Yeah I do. I seem to have an unusual talent for putting my foot in my mouth at the most inopportune moments," she replied blandly before she flashed him a quick, somewhat embarrassed, grin. "I always forget that most guys aren't as comfortable doing this kind of stuff as my brother is, so I tend to freak a lot of my guy friends out when I ask them questions like that."

Sam frowned slightly as Taylor found a bin that contained packages of plain, solid-colored underwear, and started sorting through them, apparently looking for her size. "What do you mean?"

"When I hit puberty, Mikey was the one who explained most of the stuff to me, you know, the whole 'Birds and the Bees' talk. He even took me out shopping for sports bras and the like, although he went and asked his girlfriend what the difference between a sports bra and a training bra was first," she pointed out as she seized a package of darker-colored underwear before holding it close to her body, almost as though to hide it from him. Sam arched an eyebrow, sensing a story behind that comment. Taylor turned around to look at him and promptly let out a nervous laugh when she caught sight of the bewildered expression on his face.

"You know, you don't have to stay with me. You can just wait for me up front and look at magazines or something," she suggested, almost babbling again. "This is probably embarrassing enough for you as it is, so you don't-"

"I'm fine," he stated simply, cutting off the worried commentary as he held up a hand reassuringly. "Just grab what you need. It's honestly not that big a deal, so don't worry about it."

Taylor stared at him for a few seconds before she shut her mouth and turned back around to survey the clothing items once again. Sam watched her for a few moments, noting the tension in the woman's stance, before he let out a sigh and tried to repair bridges a little bit.

"So, why was your older brother the one who explained the facts of life for you?" he finally asked. Taylor hesitated for a moment, apparently thinking things over, before she grabbed a small package of socks and turned around to face him.

"For a few years, my mom was really busy with work, mostly because a lot of stuff was going on there, including talk of merging with another company. So, she really wasn't home a lot from the time I hit thirteen until I turned sixteen. And seeing as my dad was kind of a wuss when it came to explaining the facts of life, he always told me to ask my mom. For some reason the thought of talking about 'girl stuff' freaked him out. When I asked my mom, she said that she'd tell me later, when she had time. Mikey finally decided to tell me instead," she explained softly in an offhanded tone, a somewhat wistful look entering her eyes as she spoke. "And where he couldn't fill in the blanks, he went and got help from his girlfriend, Carla. When my mom finally did sit down with me to have 'the talk', she was surprised at what I knew. It was actually kind of funny."

Sam arched an eyebrow at that, a small smile twitching about his lips as the image of a much younger Taylor conversing animatedly with an older woman came to mind.

"Your family sounds interesting," he commented, earning a bright smile from the woman as she glanced over her shoulder at him before she spotted a section with the afore-mentioned sports bras hanging off a hanger. Taylor flushed slightly before she took a deep breath and tried to get any annoying feelings of embarrassment under control. Every time she was in a new place with people she didn't know, she always got so damn flustered and ended up doing something stupid. It was annoying as hell.

"I love them dearly, but sometimes they drive me up the wall," she admitted as she quickly approached the undergarments and shifted through them for a few moments before she found two in her size and tucked them between the package of socks and underwear. "But most families are like that though. There are times when you just want to strangle your sibling because they're being so insufferable, and then there are other times when you can't live without them."

The hunter stared intently at Taylor for several seconds, his brown eyes practically boring into the small of her back before he let out a soft sigh and shrugged the comment off. The woman had no idea about Dean's deal and the aggravation it was causing him. It was just one of those comments that people make sometimes that hit a little too close to home.

Besides, they were also the words of a younger sibling. It was a normal feeling for one to want to both adore and throttle your older sibling, sometimes simultaneously.

"It sounds like you and your family are pretty close," Sam noted as he watched Taylor shift the packages around in her arms until they were in a position where she could hold them comfortably and not drop them.

"Yeah, for the most part I am," she admitted distractedly before she looked up at the younger Winchester. "I mean, I used to adore my grandmother, at least before she went all psycho on me. Mikey and I used to visit her all the time before she moved up to Washington, and she'd always tell us all of these old stories. Some of them were tales about her growing up in Scotland and what it was like, and the rest were all of these old folktales that she heard from _her_ grandmother. Honestly, she's the reason why I like reading folklore so much."

Sam chuckled as he glanced over at the woman, who was now heading down the aisle, obviously searching for something.

"What else do you need?" he asked as he pointed at the packages in Taylor's arms. She frowned thoughtfully for a moment before she let a slow sigh escape from her lips.

"Umm… a hairbrush, deodorant, a toothbrush, and toothpaste, but that's it for here," she admitted before a look of slight annoyance flashed across her face. "Oh, and a travel-sized bottle of Motrin. Don't forget the Motrin. I also need a change of clothes, so we'll have to find somewhere that sells jeans and stuff, but other than that I think we're good. That's all I need. Well, a backpack probably would be a good idea too so I can put my stuff in it."

"You might want to get a jacket too, just in case," Sam offered, noticing how Taylor shook slightly inside the air-conditioned store, as well as how she tried to keep her arms close to her body in a way to generate warmth. "It gets pretty chilly up in the northern states, even in the summer, and you can always use it as a pillow in the car too if you want to."

The woman nodded in agreement, completely missing Sam's somewhat pointed reference to the fact that it was August and not November like she thought it was.

"Good idea. I'll wait and see what I can find, but a jacket probably isn't a bad idea. I just need to be really careful about how much I spend," she mused as she glanced down at her pocket, looking as though she wanted to check her wallet to see how much cash she had on her. Sam chuckled slightly at the sight, knowing that Taylor was obviously trying to spare his dignity as much as possible.

"Need a shopping basket?" he offered good-naturedly. Taylor let out a short laugh as she nodded.

"That would be great," she admitted with a soft chuckle. "I didn't even think about that."

Taylor reached up to run a hand through her hair, an action that Sam was quickly becoming convinced was a nervous habit, and almost immediately dropped the packages, as well as the two sports bras she had selected. The woman let out a soft curse as she promptly dropped to her knees to retrieve the items, fluidly muttering obscenities in two different languages under her breath as she did so. Sam had to bite back a laugh as he slowly backed away and headed towards the front of the store, distractedly recalling that he had seen a stack of shopping baskets near the door.

He recognized the language that Taylor was throwing around now, well, to an extent, and it was all he could do not to laugh at the venomous threats that the woman was currently hissing angrily at inanimate objects. It was amusing to say the least to hear Gaelic uttered by someone who actually knew it, not to mention have the language so thoroughly abused. The dialect and pronunciation was off though; he and Dean had used Gaelic for a banishing once when they had faced down a banshee, but the version that Taylor was using sounded different.

Grabbing a basket and retreating back towards where he had left Taylor, finding her waiting there patiently with an exasperated look on her face.

"I am such a dork," she stated flatly as she dumped the selected items into the basket before she took it from Sam's hands and headed off in the direction of the aisle containing painkillers. "Actually, I'm a scatter-brained dork, but I'm not sure that there's that much of a difference. And I'm a klutz too, but you haven't been witness to that yet. Count yourself lucky, as things have been known to go flying, and sometimes breaking in the process."

The youngest Winchester arched an eyebrow as he gave the woman a questioning look, a small grin twitching about his lips as he did so. "And why is that?"

"Because I tried to hold everything in one hand, and proceeded to drop it all on the floor as a result," she muttered dryly as she reached the section with the painkillers, and started scanning the shelves for the travel-sized bottles. "My parents were right. They should have named me Grace, because then I'd at least _have_ some."

Sam actually snickered at the pun while Taylor just smiled somewhat ruefully and grabbed the coveted bottle of Motrin from the metal shelving before placing it in the basket, shaking her head all the while.

"You're not that clumsy," he offered, prompting Taylor to turn around and arch a disbelieving eyebrow at his comment as she shot him an incredulous look.

"Did you not see me trip and fall flat on my face last night?" she asked pointedly. "I know you missed the little episode with the sheets this morning, but just trust me when I say that it was embarrassing. My brother swears up and down that I am one of the most accident-prone people that he knows, and he's right. I've long lost track of the number of times he's either patched me up or carried my sorry butt to the E.R."

The hunter shrugged slightly as he accepted the woman's comment, noting offhandedly that she did have a point. After looking back on her clumsiness that morning when he and Dean had chased her, he now found it amazing that Taylor hadn't tripped and fallen down the stairs. Silence reigned between the two young adults as Taylor swiftly selected a travel-sized bar of deodorant, a green plastic, black-bristled hairbrush, a toothbrush, and a small tube of toothpaste before she headed towards the cash register.

A plain, dark gray t-shirt was soon added to the basket when the woman caught sight of it right before they reached the register, with Taylor muttering something about using it as a sleeping shirt if need be. The swimmer had just started removing items from the basket and placing them on the counter so the cashier could ring them up when Sam's cell phone went off. Offering Taylor a reassuring smile, he quickly pulled it out of his pocket and noted that it was Dean who was calling before he took a few steps away as he flipped it open.

"Hey Dean, what is it?" he asked nonchalantly as he turned away from Taylor so the woman couldn't see his face.

_"Sammy? This is some pretty freaky shit right here, I'll tell you that much,"_ Dean grumbled, annoyance evident in his tone. _"I just finished running our mystery chick's debit card number, and it's invalid. Actually, to be more specific, it doesn't even exist. The bank account that it's supposed to be connected to also doesn't exist."_

"That's not good," the youngest Winchester remarked dryly, earning a snort from his brother.

_"No shit. Hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up on that so you could stop her before she used the card. The last thing we need right now is for this girl to draw attention to us because she tried to use an invalid card, and got us in deep shit because of it."_

"Yeah, I'm with you there. Is there anything else you need to tell me?"

_"Not right now. We'll talk later, once I know that the Incredible Appearing Girl isn't standing right next to you while you buy your Midol,"_ Dean teased before he hung up, not waiting for Sam to reply. Sam let out an annoyed sigh and rolled his eyes upwards, although he frowned thoughtfully as he turned around to face Taylor, who was looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly, taking in Sam's frown with a faint hint of unease. Something wasn't right. The youngest Winchester glanced over at the cashier, who was still compiling a total on the decrepit machine, before he leaned over slightly so that his mouth was next to Taylor's ear.

"Don't use your debit card," he whispered softly, prompting a small noise of confusion from Taylor before she let out a long sigh, most likely in an effort to keep herself from saying something damning, and reached into her pocket to pull out her wallet.

"Tell me why once we get out of here," she muttered back under her breath as she flipped open the fold of battered leather and pulled out a twenty just as the cashier finished adding up the total.

"That'll be 18.93," he announced cheerfully, and Taylor rolled her eyes as she gave a slight smile at the man's attitude before she handed over the bill. The young cashier quickly counted out her change and handed it back to her, smiling flirtatiously as he did so. Taylor offered him a wry smile in response as she shook her head before she lowered her head and inserted her change into her wallet, returning it to the pocket of her jeans.

Sam watched the exchange with a cocked eyebrow as Taylor accepted the paper bag containing her purchases before turning around and heading out the door. The second they were outside the woman spun around to face him, hazel eyes narrowed into a dangerously suspicious glare as she scowled at the hunter.

"Okay, just what in the blue fuck is going on here?" the twenty-three-year old snarled as she glowered at Sam, her entire body stiff with frightened tension. It didn't take a genius to realize that Taylor was ready to bolt the second she thought something was wrong.

Sam decided to go with the truth… well, most of it.

"Dean ran the number on your debit card to see if we could pull up any information to help us with finding out what happened with you," he started slowly, taking care to keep his voice low so people passing by them wouldn't overhear what they were talking about. "Apparently your account's been shut down."

Taylor went a very nasty shade of white as she stared incredulously at Sam, her eyes widening to an almost improbable size while her mouth slowly fell open with a sharp gasp of shock.

"What?" she whispered hoarsely, her already pallid complexion whitening even further, and for one second Sam thought that she was going to pass out. When the woman wobbled slightly in her tracks, Sam immediately reached out and placed a large hand on her shoulder to keep her from toppling over on him. Fortunately for him though, Taylor seemed to regain a few shreds of her composure as she sucked in several deep breaths, color slowly returning to her cheeks as she stared with wide, unseeing eyes at his chest.

"You okay?" the hunter asked as he gently squeezed her shoulder, lowering his head slightly so that he was looking Taylor right in the eye. "Do you need to sit down?"

"Sitting down might be a good idea," she agreed weakly. She allowed Sam to escort her over to a nearby bench before she sank down gracelessly onto the wooden seat and buried her had in her hands with a low groan.

"Why is this happening?" she finally asked, her voice somewhat muffled due to the fact that her hands were still over her face. "What could I have possibly done to deserve this? Who could possibly have the power to just cancel my card like that? What the hell is going on?"

"We're not sure yet, but we're working on it," Sam offered kindly as he sat down next to Taylor, who looked over at him before she let out a long sigh and raked a hand through her hair. The woman sat there for several seconds, looking lost as she absent-mindedly played with her bangs, before she muttered something under her breath and straightened up.

"I swear that if I ever get my hands on that git Murphy, he'll rue the day he was spawned," she grumbled after a few moments, the corners of her lips twitching up into a somewhat humorless smile. "For some strange, inexplicable, warped reason that escapes my understanding, he really seems to enjoy screwing with my life."

Sam looked over at the swimmer oddly for a second, confusion flickering across his face as he watched her.

"What do you mean by that?" he wondered. Taylor gave him a wan smile before she leaned back against the slats of the wooden bench, looking out at the groups of tourists and families that walked the streets, smiling and laughing in the summer sunshine.

"I'm a firm believer in the Great God Murphy," she said before she gave a short, wry laugh and slumped back forward as she stared vacantly ahead of her at the shops across the street, her elbows resting loosely on her knees as she gently laced her fingers together, the brown paper bag containing her new purchases propped up against her denim-clad leg. "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And anything that does go wrong will get progressively worse. If you survive the first two laws, it's time to panic."

Sam cocked an eyebrow slightly, not quite getting what Taylor was saying, before it came to him.

"Oh, you think you've gone past the first two laws, huh?" he asked with a grin, and Taylor gave a dismissive snort as she looked over at him out of the corner of her eye.

"No, you think?" she responded dryly, her tone laced heavily with sarcasm. "I'm just not sure how this could possibly get any worse, other than me dying or something like that. With one fell swoop, Ryan has managed to completely screw up my life; all because he somehow got it into his head that it would be fun to be a douche. Right now, I'm looking at another semester of college before I can graduate, a family-wide freak-out session, losing my scholarship, and maybe even my job." Taylor's eyes narrowed dangerously at this statement, her lip lifting up slightly to bare her teeth as she let out an aggravated growl before she continued. "Believe me, I'm not a happy camper at the moment. The only reason I'm not a sobbing mess right now is solely due to the fact that I'm trying desperately not to think about it. And I keep repeating 'crying won't solve anything' to myself whenever I think I'm about to lose it."

"Is it helping?"

Taylor gave the hunter a skeptical look, arching an eyebrow challengingly before she let out a long sigh and leaned back so that her head rested against the top of the bench. Sam watched her stare up at the almost cloudless blue sky for several seconds, a neutral expression on her face, before her gaze focused on a lump of thunderheads already beginning to swell up in the early afternoon heat. A flicker of annoyance crossed Taylor's face as she stared at the gathering of clouds on the horizon before she cast a sidelong glance over in Sam's direction.

"Barely."

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Dean swore darkly as he pulled his cell phone away from his ear and hit the 'End Call' button, glaring angrily at the device as though it was somehow responsible for this fiasco. Bobby had called back with some of the information they needed, and it hadn't been what he had expected.

There was no record of anyone by the name of Taylor Harding, male or female, ever living in Portland, Oregon, or even attending school there. So far, Bobby had been unable to dig up birth records, report cards, family members, death certificates, anything. To top it all off, the only Hardings of Scottish ancestry that he had been able to find lived somewhere in Massachusetts, and none of them had the first name of Taylor, or Michael either for that matter. So that automatically crossed them off the list.

It was almost like Taylor had never existed.

The eldest Winchester growled out a low curse as he slumped down in his seat and glared at the glowing screen of Sam's laptop. This was not good. Either this girl was something supernatural, and she had been feeding them a line of bullshit the entire time, or she was someone who had something to hide.

If she had lied about her name it would explain the fake ID, but not the debit card and other things. And, her driver's license and college ID actually looked like they were the real things, not the fakes that he and Sam used so often. But why would a college student need false accounts and ID?

Dean let out a low groan of aggravation as he stared straight ahead, scowling at the thought of Sam wandering around alone with some chick that could be anything from a banshee to a FBI or CIA spook.

Nothing about this entire situation made any sense whatsoever.

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Taylor barely said one word as they wandered through Cornucopia looking for a clothing store, a somewhat forlorn look in her eyes; although Sam noticed that she forced herself to smile whenever she thought that he was looking in her direction. Apparently the recent information had been a bit too much for the woman to handle, although she was doing her level best to act like nothing was wrong.

"You know, I'm not going to think any less of you if you cry," he finally said, causing Taylor to let out a startled 'huh?' as she turned around to face him, fumbling slightly with the bag in her arms.

"Where the hell did that one come from?" she asked incredulously before she shook her head and let out a sigh. "Never mind, I think I already know. I know you're probably trying to make me feel better, but I'm not really a crier. If I'm upset I usually cook or swim or even clean, but I don't cry. Thanks for the effort though."

Sam cocked an eyebrow at the commentary, but said nothing as he cast a sidelong glance over at the shorter woman, who was now scanning the shops around them with a slight frown on her face.

"And I swear to god, if you say that talking about it will help, I will throw something at you," Taylor stated flatly. "I know you're trying to be nice and help, but right now I **really** don't want to talk about it. I just need to think things over for a while… okay?"

"No more talking then," Sam offered with a slight smirk, noticing almost immediately that his comment had its intended effect as Taylor let out an exasperated groan and directed her gaze skywards before she rolled her eyes.

"I didn't mean no talking, I just meant that the previous topic of conversation was to be left alone, that's all. No talking would be boring, and when I'm bored that usually leads to bad things…" Taylor trailed off as she came to a stop in front of the glass window to a shop and stared at it thoughtfully for a few seconds, a slight crease between her eyebrows forming as she regarded the items behind the glass speculatively. Sam waited patiently for a few moments for her to respond before he calmly walked up behind the woman and looked over her shoulder at the display in the window.

"What kind of bad things?" he asked. Taylor looked over at him and offered a faint smirk before she returned her attention the display.

"Oh, the usual, exploding microwaves, flaming woodchucks falling from the sky singing 'Zip A Dee Doo Dah', pop cans spraying soda into your face, pumpkins being launched into the next-door neighbor's yard, the end of the world and life as we know it… you know, that kind of stuff," she said nonchalantly, somehow managing to keep a completely straight face the entire time. Sam didn't know whether he wanted to laugh, or just stare at Taylor for the sheer and utter insanity of her statement.

"Just how many of those things have actually happened?" he asked cautiously. The woman flashed him a teasing smirk before she quickly plastered on a mask of absolute innocence.

"Everything except the world ending and the flaming woodchucks," she stated impishly. "The microwave exploded because my brother was an idiot and stuck a ramen cup in the microwave with a metal spoon in the cup. He just blamed it on me because I said I was bored right before the microwave exploded. As for the flying pumpkins, we built a trebuchet in our backyard with some friends of ours and got this wonderful idea to launch a bunch of old Halloween pumpkins into the woods behind our house." Taylor frowned slightly at this, her nose wrinkling as she remembered the incident. "One of the pumpkins accidentally went off in a completely different direction than intended and smashed right on our next-door neighbor's back porch. The really bad part was the fact that it was kind of… squishy already."

Sam cringed sympathetically at the thought. "How bad was it?"

"Really bad. Pumpkin guts everywhere. And we had to clean all of it up."

"Fun."

"That's the understatement of the century," Taylor quipped as she grinned faintly at the statement and then cocked an eyebrow questioningly before she changed the topic. "Hey, antique stores sell clothes sometimes, right?"

"I think so. Why?"

"Because I'm to the point where I just want to get the heck out of here, and I really don't care whether or not my clothes are new," Taylor stated flatly before she let out a long sigh. "As long as they're clean and decent, I'm fine with them. And they usually sell stuff pretty cheap in places like these sometimes. It just depends on what you're looking for."

Before Sam could work out a response, she had ducked into the store, leaving the confused hunter standing out of the sidewalk. The dark-haired man let out a long sigh as he reached up and ran a hand through his hair before he followed Taylor into the antique shop, silently praying that this wouldn't take much longer. He was pleasantly surprised to find that Taylor hated clothes shopping just about as much as any sane person, and had quickly searched through the shop until she stumbled upon a section containing a large amount of clothing. When Sam finally located her, she was crouched next to a set of shelves and sorting through a large stack of blue jeans, checking the tags to see the sizes, a plaid flannel shirt already thrown over her arm.

"Did you find anything?" he asked quietly as he leaned over her, and Taylor wordlessly indicated to the shirt, as well as a somewhat worn-looking leather backpack that was currently resting on the ground by her feet. She shuffled through the jeans for a few more moments before she pulled out a pair with a loud 'ah-**hah**!' and smirked triumphantly at the garment.

"Found 'em," she stated proudly as she set them down on top of the backpack and added the shirt to the pile. "Okay, let's see if I can find a jacket that isn't twenty sizes too big on me and then get the hell out of here."

"You hate shopping that much, huh?" Sam muttered dryly as he watched Taylor as she gathered up her findings in her arms and headed off towards a section that had several jackets.

"Yeah, and it doesn't help that this place smells like old lady," she hissed back, making the hunter let out a snort as he covered his mouth with his hand to keep from bursting out laughing. "I'm being serious. It smells like something went and died in one of the air vents or something! And everything's so quiet, like a library. It's creepy!"

Sam just smiled and rolled his eyes at Taylor's 'babbling', as she had dubbed it, knowing that it was her way of trying to lessen any tension that they were feeling. As far as he could tell, she was one of those people who used sarcasm and jokes to hide how they were feeling. The weirder the situation got, the more she joked around and tried to pretend like there was absolutely nothing wrong.

It was also probably why she was treating this like a normal weekend excursion with one of her friends rather than a necessary supply trip with a man that she hadn't even known for a full day.

All of a sudden a hand was waved in front of his face, and Sam jerked backwards slightly before he looked down and realized that the hand belonged to Taylor, and she now held a weathered-looking brown leather jacket in her arms in addition to her other purchases. The woman gave him a somewhat amused look as she shrugged slightly.

"You were spacing out," she offered by way of explanation. "I'm ready to go once I've paid. Just give me a minute and then we can blow this popsicle stand."

Sam nodded his consent and watched as Taylor darted over to the checkout counter and placed her selected items down in front of the cashier, a slight smile on her face as she conversed animatedly with the woman, who looked to be roughly around the same age as she was. The brunette gestured wildly as she spoke before she flashed a bright grin, obviously spinning a tale or making a joke of some kind, causing the cashier to burst into understanding laughter as she scanned the tags on the clothing. Within minutes, Taylor was done and standing in front of him again, looking at him expectantly.

"I'm ready to go now," she said with a hesitant smile as she looked up at the hunter, uncertainty flickering through her eyes for a second before she continued. "And, um… thanks for taking me here to get some stuff. And breakfast. And for offering to give me a ride home."

Sam felt the corners of his mouth twitch up into a faint smile before he turned around and started to head back towards where he had parked the Impala, with Taylor hurrying behind him until she was able to catch up and fall into step next to him.

"It's not a problem," he insisted as he glanced over at the swimmer, who had to take almost two steps for every one of his own.

"Still, you don't have to," she pointed out in the manner of one still expecting the other shoe to drop. "Most people won't do that kind of thing nowadays."

Sam arched an eyebrow curiously in response. Where had that comment come from? So far, what he had seen with Taylor was that she was very trusting at times, but also prone to moments of suspicion, mostly whenever something unexpected happened. Then again, maybe she was just good at hiding her emotions.

"It sounds like you don't have much faith in people," he remarked gently. Taylor gave a dubious snort as she rolled her eyes upwards and shifted her grip on the two bags she was holding in her arms.

"I'm in this mess because of people," she reminded the hunter pointedly with an annoyed huff.

"And to quote one Harry Dresden, 'People suck. But _persons_ are worthwhile. Always.'"

"Really now? You don't act that way," Sam commented thoughtfully as he regarded Taylor, who glanced over at him with an odd little frown on her face before she returned her attention to the sidewalk in front of her.

"Just because I smile and laugh and make jokes doesn't mean that I trust someone," she stated seriously before she lifted her head up slightly to look at the sky, her hazel eyes shifting slightly in the sudden light so that it appeared as though they had a bit more green in them. "Yeah, I'm friendly and everything, but that's just me being polite. It's kind of like a mask. You know, 'All the world's a stage' and all that jazz. People think that I'm all innocent and everything, but then when they piss me off they're all surprised when they realize that I'm a hell of a lot more serious and mature than I like to let on."

Sam hesitated for a second at that statement, caught a bit off-guard by the woman's frank tone.

"So you lie to them?" he finally asked skeptically as he cocked an eyebrow. Taylor shot him an insulted look before she shifted both of her bags over to the crook of her arm and reached up to rake her free hand through her hair, something that the hunter had learned was a clear sign of agitation.

"No. I just don't let them know what I'm thinking."

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Once they got back to the motel, the rest of the day was spent in room, with Taylor promptly swallowing two of the Motrin before crashing on the couch as soon as she had deposited the bags at the foot of said piece of furniture. She very bluntly told both Winchesters that she was going to take a nap in the hopes that her migraine would go away, and give the pain killers some time to work. It didn't help that she was still exhausted from being chased around at one a.m.

Sam made sure that the woman was well and truly asleep before he brought Dean up to date on what he had learned. By the time he was done, the eldest Winchester looked like he had swallowed a lemon.

"Sammy, this is some pretty serious shit," Dean finally said as he glanced over in Taylor's direction, frowning slightly. "Bobby called me back, and apparently none of the information we gave him existed. He even called Portland University and asked about her. I guess he made up some story about there being a death in the family and that he needed to get in touch with her. Anyways, according to the student records, no one by the name of Taylor Harding has ever even attended school over there."

"So what you're saying is that technically she shouldn't even exist?" Sam asked incredulously, ignoring the 'Sammy' comment for the time being. Dean rolled his eyes and made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat as he leaned back slightly on the bed and resumed cleaning his weapons.

"Something like that," he admitted as he put away the cleaning kit and stared to reassemble his Colt .45. "I managed to snag some fingerprints off of the coffee cup she used this morning, so we'll try running those and see what pops up. Personally, I'm starting to think that she might be some kind of manifestation or something."

"Of what?"

"I don't know."

Sam let out a low groan as he leaned back and ran his fingers through his hair, exasperation evident on his face.

"Did you find anything in Dad's journal?" he finally asked, and was rewarded with a scowl from Dean as he finished reassembling his gun and set it down on the bedspread next to him.

"Sort of," he admitted with a shrug. "I found an entry talking about these things called homunculi. Apparently they're artificially created humans or something, but they don't have any souls. According to an alchemist Dad talked to, you can shove the soul of a dead person into one of these things, and presto! Instant unchanging person. No records, nada."

Both brothers winced slightly at the thought as they glanced over at Taylor, who was still sound asleep on the couch, although her mouth was currently hanging slightly open as she snored softly. Dean arched his eyebrows as he watched the woman sleep for a few moments before he returned his attention to the younger Winchester, who looked a little worried.

"Do you think she knows that she's dead, well, if that is the case?" Sam wondered softly, his eyes softening as he watched Taylor closely.

"Probably not. Why else would she be so determined to get home if she knew that she was dead?"

"Dean, two words: Phantom Hitchhiker."

An uncomfortable silence filled the room for several long moments after that, with both brothers musing quietly at the thought. Sam finally let out a long sigh in an attempt to break the almost overwhelming silence as he stood up and headed for his laptop.

"I'll see what else I can find," he stated calmly as he sat down in the chair, ready to do some more research, before something hit him and he turned around to face his brother. "Dean, what are we going to do with her tonight when we take care of the ghost?"

Dean frowned slightly at the question and looked thoughtful for a few moments before he arrived to a conclusion. "We can't leave her here… so we'll just take her with us."

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"Stay in the car… geez, what am I, five?"

Taylor let out a loud groan as she flopped back down on the leather seat, biting back the very childish urge to whine out loud that she was bored. When Sam had told her that she was coming with them while they followed a tip on the case that they were working on, she had been shocked to say the least. As far as she knew, the police weren't supposed to bring civilians with them when they were doing investigations.

But, then again, these guys weren't the police.

The woman sighed as she lay on her back and crossed her arms behind her head, staring up at the ceiling of the Impala blankly as she mused on the complete and utter strangeness of the situation. She was sitting in the backseat of a vintage muscle car, waiting for two private investigators to finish speaking to an informant, in Wisconsin.

"My life is weird," Taylor finally muttered as she turned over onto her side, deciding that a nap was probably in order. And, if she fell asleep, the time would probably go by faster too.

Just when she was about to doze off, a bright flash of lightning lit up the entire landscape, followed by the sharp crack of thunder that sounded off overhead. Taylor jerked up in her seat, hazel eyes wide as she looked out the window and saw that the storm that had been brewing outside all afternoon had finally decided to let loose.

"Yippie," she muttered sarcastically as she stared thoughtfully out the window, watching the trees bend and sway to the high winds that were now whistling through the area. "Maybe my headache will go away now."

With a loud sigh Taylor allowed herself to flop back down on the seat and closed her eyes, letting her earlier weariness to wash over her. She was almost asleep when the gunshots started.

With a startled curse the young woman shot up in her seat and looked out the windows, trying to see who was shooting at her, before she realized that the gunfire was coming from the abandoned cabin that Dean and Sam had entered not even fifteen minutes before.

"What in the hell is going on?" she muttered warily, her eyes narrowing slightly as she leaned in between the gap made by the front seats so she could get a better look at the dilapidated cabin. Taylor's frown only deepened further when she realized that most of the gunshots were not the puny popping of small arms fire, such as a pistol that private investigators might carry, but rather the deep, resounding roar of a shotgun blast.

Before the woman could speculate further as to why a couple of private investigators would get into a gunfight with an 'informant', Dean came flying out one of the few windows that still remained intact in a shower of glass before he collided heavily with the trunk of a very sturdy nearby oak tree. Ignoring all of the warnings and insistences that she stay in the car given to her by both men earlier, Taylor flung open the back door and charged towards Dean, crouching down by the older man's side as she gently placed a hand on his chest to make sure that he was still alive.

"Holy shit! Was this informant of yours a Wookie or something?!" she demanded incredulously as she looked down at Dean, who merely groaned something incoherent in reply. Taylor immediately felt guilty for the insensitivity of her comment.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly, cringing slightly when she caught sight of the bloody gash right above Dean's left eye. Said eye cracked open to look at her blearily, and then was promptly closed once again as the elder Winchester let out a low groan.

"Stop movin'," he slurred out as he cracked both eyes open to stare at Taylor. The woman winced as she noticed the irregular size of one of Dean's pupils, and promptly held up her index finger before she slowly moved it back and forth in front of his face, just like how Mikey had once shown her how to do.

"Try to follow my finger with your eyes," she ordered gently, her tone firm, and then let out a sigh when Dean failed to do so, his visual focus erratic. "Congratulations. You're concussed."

"What?"

"It's not a bad one, but I wouldn't be walking if I were you," Taylor stated firmly, and pressed her hand down on Dean's chest when he tried to get back to his feet. "Dude, sit your ass down, okay? I don't need you passing out on me."

"I gotta help Sammy," Dean insisted weakly, and Taylor bit back the urge to smack him upside the head and yell 'Idiot!', knowing that it would only make things worse. That was about when a new round of gunfire erupted, followed by the sounds of panicked swearing and Sam roaring out Dean's name. Taylor looked at the house and cringed, not really liking where her thoughts were going.

More shots were fired, followed by the loud 'thump' of something heavy hitting a wall inside of the cabin. After a few moments, Sam started shouting something, but Taylor couldn't make out what he was saying. The woman stared at the depilated cabin for a few more moments, her expression pained, before she brought her hand up to her face and slowly dragged it down, uttering a low growl of frustration as she did so. Somehow, she knew that she was really going to regret this later.

As in, 'I am such a fucking dumbass for even **considering** doing this' regret.

"You stay here, I'll help Sam," she finally said as she got to her feet. Dean managed to mutter something incomprehensible, but Taylor didn't pay any attention to it as she slowly stalked inside the cabin, her hands clenching tightly as she scanned the filthy interior. Her plan, dumb as it was, was to distract the guy shooting at Sam long enough for the other man to subdue him.

Hopefully she wouldn't get yelled at too much for doing something that stupid.

Taylor slowly slid her foot forward as she edged around a corner, and almost swore out loud when her foot hit something metallic and sent it skittering a few feet across the rough wooden floorboards. It turned out to be a shotgun, presumably the one Dean had dropped before he was given a free flying lesson. The woman stared down at the weapon and swallowed nervously, cautiously checking around her to make sure that someone wasn't in the room with her.

The loud thud in the attic, followed by a long string of what could only be insults and profane suggestions, told her that Sam and the unknown attacker had moved the fight upstairs. Taylor looked back down at the shotgun before she grabbed it and headed over towards the stairs.

Halfway there, Taylor promptly tripped over something large and somewhat soft that had been left right in the middle of the room, falling flat on her face in the thick dust that was liberally smeared over the floorboards. She bit back a curse as the shotgun flew from her hands, sliding to a stop several feet away from her. Muttering some very inappropriate things under her breath, Taylor forced herself into a crouch and looked over her shoulder to see what had tripped her. It was a large duffle bag, looking particularly careworn, and more than a little squashed. In the darkness that filled the cabin it was almost impossible to see.

"Okaaaay, that's not odd," she muttered, not noticing that the sounds of fighting above her had stopped. "Why would anyone just leave something like this right in the middle of the floor?"

Before she could do anything else, the temperature of the room plunged straight down into subzero temperatures. Taylor swore as she jerked back, noting uneasily that her breath was now visible.

Something was not right.

A howling wind suddenly whipped up out of nowhere, sending dust and scattered papers flying, causing the woman to jerk back slightly and throw her right arm up in an attempt to shield her face.

Something was definitely not right.

Just when Taylor was about to say screw it and get the hell out of dodge, a faint haze started to develop over in the right-hand corner of the room, rapidly gaining mass and form even as she watched. The woman let out a yelp as she scrambled backwards until her back was pressed up against the rough wooden wall, her hazel eyes wide as the mist slowly assumed the form of a rugged-looking man in his mid to late thirties, dressed in clothes that were at least a century out of date.

And she could see right through him.

Taylor felt her mouth go dry at the sight, her eyes widening to an almost impossible degree as she took in what was right in front of her and tried to come up with a rational reason for how she was seeing this. Unfortunately her brain decided that no, she was not going crazy, and yes the… _thing_ standing in front of her was in fact very real, if the nasty leer he was giving her was any indication.

He could probably see her too.

"Oh God," she whispered hoarsely, at a complete and total loss at what to do for once in her life. Her grandmother had told her stories about ghosts and such, but she'd never once thought that they could be **real**.

The man seemed to be amused by her disbelieving gasp, at least if the vicious smirk was anything to go by.

"Well now, isn't _this_ a surprise?" he stated, a slight British accent coloring his words as he slowly stepped towards Taylor. "What's a lovely little poppet doing in such an awful place like this? Aren't you scared of the ghosties and beasties, little one?"

Taylor felt a very strong urge to throw something at the man. No one had ever called her 'little one', even when she was a kid, and she found it to be incredibly insulting. Any fear that she had felt previously was now replaced by an indignant anger usually reserved for some of the morons on her swim team that thought they were better than her just because they were male.

"No, I'm more annoyed than scared right now," she growled out as she got to her feet and glared at the ghost, steadily attempting to ignore the fact that she could see straight through him. "Who the hell are you?"

"Nicholas Stewart," the man said somewhat mockingly as he arched an eyebrow. "Tell me now, are you going to try and read your pathetic little Catholic bible at me and tell me to return to the light, poppet? Because if ye' are, I'm already shaking in fear. A tiny little slip of a thing like you couldn't get rid of me even if you tried."

Stewart's grin suddenly turned malevolent as he took a step towards her, and Taylor swore as she ducked out of the way and bolted towards the abandoned shotgun, which she immediately scooped up and leveled at the ghost, silently sending up a prayer of thanks to her father for teaching her how to shoot in the first place. The swimmer automatically adopted the customary stance when firing a gun while upright by spreading her legs apart slightly and placing the stock into the small of her shoulder, her entire body tense as she stared at the spirit.

"Stay back unless you really want to have a chat with my little friend here," she growled, doing her best to sound confident, and not scared shitless like she really was. Stewart hesitated momentarily, and a look of confusion flashed briefly across his face as he stared at her intently.

"Oh ho ho, what's this? You're not like the others, little girl," he chuckled slyly, shaking off whatever had unnerved him before. Taylor swore that she felt a vein in her forehead throb at the dismissive tone in the dead man's voice.

"Maybe that's because I usually kick the ass of anyone brain dead enough to call me a 'little girl'," she growled warningly as she slowly started edging sideways towards the door, while still attempting to maintain a steady aim with the shotgun at Stewart. The ghost cocked an eyebrow at the comment before he gave a derisive snort.

"No, that's not it at all. There's something… _off_ about you," he drawled as he drifted closer to Taylor, and promptly froze before he was even five feet away from the nervous woman, his eyes widening as he stared at her almost incredulously. "You don't belong here."

Taylor bit back the rude response that immediately come to mind as she glared daggers at the ghost, adjusting her grip on the shotgun slightly.

"No shit, Sherlock," she retorted sardonically. "I'm standing in an abandoned house aiming a shotgun at a dead guy, who is currently telling me that something's off about me. Last time I checked, that's not what I normally do on weekends."

Stewart didn't look very impressed by her cheek as he glowered at her for a moment before he flicked a finger towards Taylor. A startled curse escaped from the young woman's mouth as gale-like winds suddenly whipped up from out of nowhere and sent her flying into a wall on the other side of the room, forcibly driving the breath from her lungs.

Fortunately, she somehow managed to keep a firm grip on the shotgun as she collapsed in a bruised heap on the floor, sucking in a pained breath through gritted teeth.

"Do not mock me, child! You don't belong here, Rift Jumper. Your very existence here is a paradox; you exist where you should not, where there is not even a shadow of your being to flicker around you," Stewart snarled darkly as he suddenly flickered into being right in front of Taylor, looming ominously over her as objects started to fly about the room in a decidedly **bad** manner. The woman yelped in surprise as she scrambled off to the side, hopefully well outside of Stewart's reach, before she got back to her feet and leveled the shotgun at him once again.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Taylor demanded sharply, doing her best to keep the spirit from noticing just very freaked out she now was. As if things hadn't been weird enough already.

"What I am saying, wayward Highland child, is that you are incomprehensibly far from where you should be," Stewart sneered, and a look of dark satisfaction crossed his face at Taylor's shocked gasp to the reference of her heritage, which she had not even mentioned. "You can no longer hide behind the Veil that has protected you and your kin for so long. You are the only one that has passed through, and in doing so left both hearth and home, as well as all kin, behind. And that also means that there shall be no one to mourn your passing!"

With that statement, the ghost threw himself at Taylor, who swore loudly as she jerked backwards in an attempt to distance herself from the entity. Her back hit the unfortunately solid wall behind her, and in a moment of panic, her finger twitched against the shotgun's trigger. The old gun exploded with a loud roar, spraying a load of rock salt right into Stewart's face.

The ghost let out an ear-shattering screech before he disappeared, leaving behind a very shaken and bewildered Taylor, who now stared numbly at the spot where Stewart had been.

"What in the bloody hell?" she whispered hoarsely, her grip on the shotgun unconsciously tightening as she looked around her to make sure that Stewart really was gone. When she spotted no signs of the ghost, the woman let out a sigh of relief as she slumped against the wall, although she still gripped the shotgun tightly.

"Oh thank heaven," she muttered fervently as she directed her gaze upwards, not noticing the sounds of someone slowly making their way down the stairs.

"Man, Dean, what took you so long…?" a familiar voice began, and Taylor jerked as she straightened up and stared at Sam, her eyes wide as she gaped at the taller man, who looked equally surprised to see her standing there. Silence reigned between the two adults for several moments as they both tried to figure out just what exactly the other was going there. The youngest Winchester appeared to be at a loss for words for the time being, so Taylor decided that it was probably a good idea to break the awkward silence between them.

Flashing the taller man a deceptively cocky grin, Taylor took a step away from the wall and arched a questioning eyebrow.

"So, when exactly did the job description for private investigator change to meaning Ghostbuster?" she quipped sarcastically, feeling a brief flare of satisfaction at the guilty look that flickered across Sam's face at the remark.

Somehow, she got the feeling that this was going to be a very long story.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, it looks like Taylor's gotten into some pretty deep shit, and Sam has some serious explaining to do. Fun times.

In regards to whole 'homunculus' bit, there actually is an entry… two to be more precise, on homunculi and how they're created in John Winchester's journal. Yes, it is an actual book now too, and you can get it at Barnes and Noble or Borders. I have a copy, if you can't tell.

Anyways, I apologize for the time it took for me to complete this chapter, but I've been a bit busy with school, and everything else that goes along with it.

**Reviews:**

ShadowYashi: Bingo! (hands over plate of cookies) You got it. And it's sort of a combination of the two, but you'll find that out later. I dropped a major clue about what happened in this chapter, so I hope that you caught it.

Starpossum: Yeah, it is a little too obvious. You are close though, but close only counts for horseshoes and hand grenades. So sorry, but no Dean.

**Dean:** Thank god.

**Wandering Hitokiri:** (smacks Dean upside the head) Be nice.

I'm glad that you like the story so far.

hyourin-kusabana: She may be with Sam and Dean, but that doesn't really mean much when you're forced to rely on two complete strangers for everything. As for the breakdown part, that will probably come later on.

destra: Thanks. I'm glad that you've enjoyed it so far.

Silvaria: Oh wow, you got it right too. Now that you know the basics, the finer details will soon come into play as well. I'm glad that you liked the last line. It just seemed so… Dean.

**Taylor:** Great. Now please give me my logic back before I have to hurt someone.

MyDarkSideHasAWayOfHerOwn: (Taylor, Sam, Dean, and Wandering Hitokiri all gape at the computer screen)

**All:** Aw, GROSS!!!

Okay, that goes on the list of things I really didn't want to know. I've been scarred for life. And Taylor wouldn't resort to something like that, mostly due to the fact that she's stubborn as hell, and would rather get up and do something about a problem than sit around and cry about it.

MusicLover27: Thank you. I'm glad that you enjoy it.

Shepherd's Purse: Yes, Castiel is awesome, even though certain individuals don't think so at first. I'm also glad that you enjoyed the last chapter, which was really kind of a get to know you kind of thing for Taylor. I know this chapter probably wasn't as action-packed as you would like, but it also has some development too.

Sweetooth Alchemist: Thank you.


	5. Chapter Four: Burn It To The Ground

"May you live in interesting times." – Chinese curse

**Chapter Four:**

**Burn It To The Ground**

Taylor frowned as she stared at Sam intently, who looked for all the world like a kid who had just gotten caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

"So, an informant, huh?" she finally asked dryly, trying and failing to keep the harsh sarcasm out of her voice as she thought about crossing her arms over her chest, but then decided against it after realizing that she was still gripping the shotgun tightly. "Are all of your sources of information dead, or is this guy just a special case?"

The biting remark seemed to snap the youngest Winchester out of his stunned daze as he straightened up and shot Taylor a somewhat annoyed frown of his own, his grip on his own gun tightening slightly.

"I thought we said that you were supposed the stay in the car," he finally said reprovingly, prompting Taylor to roll her eyes as she gave him a disgusted look.

"And I did, at least until your brother came flying out the front window and hit his head against a nearby tree," she retorted sharply before her expression sharpened into an angry glare. "You lied to me!"

"What?"

"You two lied to me! Hell, I bet you guys weren't even going to take me home!"

Sam's eyes widened at the accusation, and he opened his mouth to respond, only to be cut off the ghostly wind kicked up once again with a vengeance, sending papers and grit flying. Taylor froze at the sight, her eyes widening as she quickly brought up the shotgun and pressed her back up against the wall.

"Fuck," she hissed before she fumbled for the pump on the shotgun and quickly ejected the spent salt cartridge. "He's coming back, isn't he?"

"I think so," Sam responded hesitantly as he glanced over at the swimmer. "Okay, when I say run, I want you to run for the front door and not stop until you're outside. Don't let anything-"

Before the hunter could finish his sentence, the heavy wooden door slammed shut, followed by the very distinctive sound of a lock sliding into place. Taylor stared at the barred door for several seconds with an odd expression on her face, before she frowned slightly.

"Somehow, I don't think he wants us to leave," she finally remarked dryly as the frown changed into a full-blown scowl.

"Obviously," Sam retorted blandly as he glanced over at the swimmer, who shot him a dirty look in response before she looked around the room almost frantically. "Do you know how to shoot?"

"With a rifle, yeah. I haven't really used a shotgun before," Taylor responded tersely as she glanced down at the sawed-off shotgun that she held somewhat awkwardly in her hands before she shifted her grip into a somewhat more comfortable position. "My dad taught me how to shoot when I was thirteen, and I'm in the Forestry program. I know how to use a gun."

"That's good, because you're probably going to need-" a piece of wood that was sent flying at the youngest Winchester's head cut off the rest of his sentence as he ducked out of the way, and Taylor yelped as she took a step away from where the airborne timber collided with the wall.

"Shit, this guy doesn't screw around, does he?" she asked as she looked over at Sam as he straightened up. The hunter looked over at her and his eyes widened in surprise, causing Taylor to whirl around and come face-to-face with a maniacally grinning Stewart.

"No poppet, I don't," he sneered as the woman recoiled and tried to bring up her gun, a steady stream of panicked expletives falling from her lips as her shaking hands tried to find the pump. Stewart smirked at Taylor before he took a step towards her and grabbed the swimmer by the front of her shirt, hauling her up to eye level with him.

"Children should be **seen** and not **heard**!" he spat out before he threw Taylor at Sam, sending her flying bodily into the hunter before both of them crashed into the wall behind them in a bruised heap of tangled limbs. Sam let out a pained gasp as his back impacted heavily with the wall, all while trying to prevent Taylor from having the same experience. Both of them fell to the floor with a grunt, and Taylor hissed out something in Gaelic that sounded incredibly foul as she tried to get off of Sam.

"Well, I can't say that I expected that," she muttered sarcastically as she glanced over her shoulder at Sam, who grunted noncommittally in response. "Are you okay?"

"I'm still alive."

"That's always good."

"Not when you have your elbow digging into my stomach," Sam said through gritted teeth. Taylor looked sheepish at the statement as she removed the offending appendage and tried to scramble off of the lanky man, muttering apologies as she did so. The woman glanced over to where their weapons had fallen when they had crashed into each other, trying to think of a way to get to them without being thrown about the room like a human pinball. Unfortunately, Stewart didn't give her the chance to come up with anything before he came barreling out of nowhere at Taylor.

Somehow, the ghost managed to send the woman flying across the room away from Sam, making her crash back-first into the wall by the staircase. Taylor swore that she saw stars as she slid to the ground, her breathing coming in short gasps as she closed her eyes and waited for the world to stop spinning. For some reason, she didn't think that puking on a ghost would make it go away.

Once the ringing in her ears had faded, Taylor was able to make out the tinny sounds of Stewart taunting Sam on the other side of the room, making some form of snide commentary about their skill levels, or lack of them. The swimmer groaned as she forced herself to her feet, and directed an annoyed glare at the ghost as he turned around to face her.

"My God, do you **ever** shut up?" she asked. "I swear you talk even more than my roommate when she's on a sugar high, and she practically babbles at Mach 10."

"Still alive I see," Stewart remarked with a smirk. Taylor cocked an eyebrow before she gave the spirit a feral grin and flipped him the bird, ignoring the small part of her that practically screamed 'you moron!' at the action.

"Didn't you get the memo? I'm a bit of a bitch to kill," she shot back. She felt a bit of smug satisfaction when Stewart looked like he was about ready to strangle her, although Sam was currently staring at her like she had taken leave of her senses. Then again, maybe she had. She was almost positive that insanity ran in her family, so it would make sense.

"You try my patience, child," the spirit hissed darkly, and Taylor gave him a condescending look as she slowly started sidestepping her way towards the front door. Maybe, if she kept Stewart busy enough, Sam could do the thing with the salt rounds and they could get the hell out of there.

"I do that with everyone. What makes you so special?"

Stewart chose not to answer her as he made a slight motion with his hand, one that sent the woman flying backwards into a wall with a loud 'thud', leaving Taylor lying on the floor and breathing shallowly as she tried to figure out whether or not she had just broken one of her ribs. Somehow, she mustered up the will to mutter something fairly insulting as she rolled over onto her side and directed a venomous glare at the spirit.

"Is that the best you can do, you damned pansy-ass Limey bastard?" she growled as she forced herself up into a sitting position, not noticing the pendant that had fallen out from under her shirt where it had been hidden. "No wonder you morons lost the Revolution."

Normally she wasn't exactly one to use racial slurs, but this… _thing_ deserved it. As long as she could keep him distracted, and let Sam do his thing so they could get the hell out of there, she would be more than willing to call Stewart every foul name in the book. Her commentary seemed to have the desired effect as Stewart spun away from Sam and glared at her, a not-quite-sane look in his eyes as his face twisted into a mask of rage.

"You'll regret taking that tone with me, girl," Stewart spat before he flung himself at the swimmer. Taylor flinched as she jerked backwards, only to have her mouth fall open in stunned disbelief as the ghost appeared to hit some kind of boundary roughly three feet away from her and disappear, almost like smoke breaking apart in the wind. There was dead silence in the room for several seconds, pun not intended, before Taylor finally trusted herself to speak.

"Okay, just what the hell was that?" she asked shakily as she looked over at Sam, who was now staring at her.

"I'm… not really sure," he admitted reluctantly. Further words were interrupted by Stewart re-appearing in front of them, looking considerably angrier as he stalked towards Taylor, although he was careful to stay more than three feet away from her this time.

"Filthy Highland wench! Where did you get that?" he snarled as he jabbed a finger at the simple metal pendant hanging from a twisted leather cord looped around Taylor's neck. The woman looked surprised as she glanced down at the small circle of metal, her fingers briefly brushing over the flowing script engraved into the surface, before a look of understanding finally flickered across her face.

"Huh, well would you look at that?" she muttered thoughtfully before she slowly stood up and gave the ghost a somewhat strained smirk. "Looks like my Gran knew what she was doing when she gave me this. After all, the fey and spirits aren't exactly fond of cold iron, are they?"

Stewart didn't get a chance to answer as the resounding roar of a shotgun going off split the too-still air in the room, and the ghost faded away as he was blasted right in the face with a load of rock salt. Taylor and Sam both turned to face the doorway, and found Dean standing there with the still-smoking shotgun in his hands, looking more than a little worse for the wear.

"They also aren't fond of rock salt being blasted into their ectoplasmic mugs," the injured hunter growled as he stepped into the room before he glanced over at his brother. "Sam, what the hell just happened?"

"Don't really know."

"Great."

Taylor looked in between the two Winchesters for a second in confusion before she gave an aggravated growl and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at both men.

"So, when does the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man show up?" she asked dryly, sarcasm practically dripping from her words as she gave the brothers a look that she must have kept locked in the freezer for special occasions. Dean stared at her, green eyes wide, apparently having just noticed that she was standing in the room with them, and Sam looked somewhat sheepish. The elder Winchester blinked, shook his head, and let out a low growl of annoyance as he looked over at his brother.

"How the hell did she get in here?" he demanded as he looked at Taylor, and then noticed the shotgun that she held in her hands. "You gave her a gun?"

"No genius, I picked it up off the floor after you got your sorry ass tossed out the window by Casper's deranged cousin," Taylor retorted pithily as she glowered at Dean before she noticed how the older man seemed to be having problems focusing on her, and his hands seemed to be shaking slightly. "Shit, you're still concussed."

"I've had worse."

"Bullshit. My brother's a doctor, so I know what the hell I'm talking about. You can barely stand up, much less see straight."

"Dean's got a thick skull," Sam interjected as he stepped in between the two before a full-blown argument could break out. "And now's really not the best time to start yelling at each other over this. Right now we have one seriously pissed-off ghost on our hands, and if we don't get this taken care of quickly we'll probably be the next people that he'll kill."

Taylor's eyes widened noticeably at this, and she paled as she stared at the hunter for a few seconds before she let out a resigned sigh.

"Fine, but you two owe me one **hell** of an explanation once this is done," she stated seriously as she jabbed a finger at the brothers. "And don't you **dare** try to pawn off some bullshit excuse. I don't like liars. Now, what do we need to do to stop this bastard?"

"We salt and burn his bones," Dean said with a smirk, and Taylor blinked and stared at him for several moments.

"You're joking," she said flatly, and when neither man said anything to indicate otherwise, she let out a low groan as an expression of stunned uncertainty flashed across her face. "Oh God, you're **not** joking. Shit."

"Welcome to our world, sweetheart," Dean quipped as he gave the younger woman a somewhat strained, but still cocky, smirk and brushed past her. "Sam, you got the salt and the gas?"

Sam nodded as he went over to the abandoned duffle bag that Taylor had tripped over earlier and rummaged around inside for a moment before pulling out a decent-sized burlap bag full of rock salt, and a metal flask of what Taylor could only assume was gasoline. The swimmer felt her stomach enter a free-fall down to the general vicinity of her ankles as she stared at the objects, unconsciously gripping the shotgun tighter than before. Just when she was about to hope that they could just say 'screw it' and get the hell out of dodge…

Taylor felt a bitter taste well up in her mouth, and she scowled as she forced it back down. She was no coward, but this went way above and beyond anything that she'd ever had to deal with.

"Right here," Sam offered as he held up the required items and stood up.

"Then let's go torch this son of a bitch." Dean paused for a second as he looked over at Taylor, and then smirked. "You can go and wait out in the car if you're scared, sweetheart."

The woman bristled visibly at the insult, and she gave Dean a look that plainly stated that she would like nothing better than to kick his ass from one end of the room to the other.

"My name's Taylor, not 'sweetheart', and like hell I'm going to go out and wait in the freakin' car," she growled as she gave the hunter a death glare. "I am **not** some damsel in distress."

"And this is not some action movie where you get to play along," Dean retorted shortly. "If you slip up, you could die."

"No, you think? Gee, that kind of sounds like my life already, what with the whole 'drug me up and ship me off to freaking **Wisconsin**' crap that's gone on, on top of everything else," Taylor shot back acidly, any last shreds of control that she may have had on her temper rapidly fraying at the sheer incredulity of the situation. "Besides, I don't exactly think that this jackass is going to let any of us out of here."

As if to prove a point, the front door suddenly slammed shut once again, and the sound of the bolt being thrown echoed throughout the room. Sam let out an annoyed groan at the development, while Dean turned around and glared stonily at the wooden door, almost as though he blamed the lifeless object for their current predicament. Taylor just groaned as she clapped her free hand to her face, silently praying that would somehow manage to emerge from this mess with her sanity intact.

Right now, the odds of that weren't looking too good.

"Whee-ha boy howdy," she muttered under her breath as she reluctantly removed her hand from her face and looked at the wooden portal. "This just keeps getting better and better. Can't this guy just take a hint and go away?"

"You would think," Dean growled as he adjusted his grip on his own shotgun. Stewart chose that moment to reappear in front of them, and was promptly dispersed by three almost simultaneous blasts of rock salt. Taylor looked at the spot that the ghost had occupied only seconds before and blinked before she flashed the Winchesters a slightly crooked smirk.

"That was… strangely therapeutic," she said before she looked back at the spot where Stewart had appeared and frowned slightly. "Okay, question: are all ghosts as chatty as this guy? I always thought they were all moan and groan and repeated messages, or funny smells and that kind of junk. I never thought that they would be able to act, well… not dead."

"Not usually," Sam admitted, ignoring the scowl that Dean sent his way as they approached the stairs, and the space underneath that contained what looked like the entrance to a root cellar. "Most of the time they just screech and say a word or two, but this is the first time I've ever seen one actually carry on an intelligent conversation."

"Why?"

"It has something to do with the fact that they go Loony Toons when they've been dead too long and haven't moved on to whatever kind of afterlife awaits them," Dean responded shortly. "The same thing happens with zombies."

Taylor's eyebrows shot up and she stared at the older man before she shook her head and sighed. "Somehow, I get the feeling that I just really don't wanna know."

"You're taking this pretty well," Sam observed, and Taylor gave a disbelieving snort as she gave the man a sardonic glare over her shoulder.

"Give me time. I'm sure that I'll be freaking out with the best of them once this whole mess is over," she grumbled bitterly. "I just don't exactly relish the idea of dying halfway across the country in a town I've never even heard of before today. I've already been missing for three days; I don't need to have someone call my parents to tell them that they found my body out somewhere out in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin."

Dean gave an annoyed sigh at the woman's comment as he rolled his eyes upwards. "You sure do obsess about dying."

"Kiss my ass."

"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" the oldest Winchester sniped back, only to be treated with a supremely dirty glare from Taylor as she visibly restrained herself from saying something damning. Sam let out a frustrated sound as he moved in between the two and gave them both warning looks.

"Seriously guys, do you mind?" he grumbled pointedly. Taylor huffed in irritation as she rolled her eyes upwards, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like 'Lord give me strength', before she stepped off to the side and allowed Dean to go in front of her.

"Ladies first," she offered with a perfectly straight face, earning an incredibly dirty look from Dean as he shot a glare at her from over his shoulder. Taylor only smiled innocently at him in return while Sam had to bite back the snicker that threatened to emerge from his throat. He was usually the one who had to deal with the girl comments, so it was amusing to see Dean being on the receiving end for once.

Dean opened his mouth to fire back a retort as he reached for the cellar door handle with one hand, an angry scowl on his face as he stared directly over his shoulder at Taylor. The man's fingers were bare millimeters away from the weathered metal knob when the door practically exploded, sending all three of them flying backwards. Taylor groaned as she sat up, blinking blood out of her left eye as it slowly dripped down her face from the cut above her eyebrow before she quickly reached up and wiped it out of her face. A gleeful cackle was the only warning she had before she was unceremoniously flung into a wall, and a chill washed over her as she felt the distinct sensation of the aged leather thong that had been around her neck since the age of six snap.

Stewart's annoying cackle turned into a shrill screech of triumph, and Taylor's entire world exploded into a blaze of pain as she was flung across the room, her only source of protection from the deranged spirit _gone_. Obscenities in every language that she had ever heard – and even a few that she made up right on the spot – flew from the Scotswoman's lips as she crashed to the floor, barely even recognizing the startled shouts from both Sam and Dean as they recovered in time to see her assault.

"_Fuck_," the woman snarled as she rolled over onto her back, her teeth clenched tight in pain as her now-thoroughly-abused ribs shrieked in protest. Apparently Stewart really liked the idea of killing her first since she had managed to ward him off earlier. Great, she had attracted the attention of a ghostly 19th century serial killer. Her day just kept getting better and better. "Hey, here's an idea; why don't you just go back to the damn land of tweed and tea where you belong, you psycho bastard?"

For some odd reason, the second the words left her lips, an old commercial from the early 90's, when Taylor had just been a kid, came to mind. It had been a commercial for some brand of milk that she was pretty sure no longer existed, and somehow her mind managed to warp it to fit her situation. Good idea: running like hell. Bad idea: mouthing off to Casper gone psycho.

And, if the expression on Stewart's ectoplasmic mug was any indication, her abrasive comment had indeed been a _very_ bad idea.

The swimmer stared steadily at the spirit, fighting to keep a neutral mask in place as she rolled over onto her side, before she shoved herself up off the floor and bolted towards the door, ignoring the shocked looks that she received from the Winchesters. Stewart let out a gleeful howl as he lunged after her, and promptly flickered out of sight. Taylor had almost made it to the door when something invisible seized her by the back of her shirt and sent her flying into a wall, before repeating the process, only on the other side of the room. A blast of rock salt disrupted the action, and Taylor fell heavily to the floor, gasping in pain.

"What are you idiots waiting for, a bloody engraved invitation?" she snarled as she looked up at Sam and Dean, ignoring the blood seeping from the cut over her left eye. "Burn the bastard!"

And with that lovely parting statement, she scrambled back to her feet and bolted for the door once again. Dean stared disbelievingly at the younger woman, briefly wondering if she had lost her mind, while Sam gaped at her.

"She's the bait," he whispered incredulously as he looked over at his brother. "She's distracting Stewart for us."

Dean winced as he watched the woman get thrown up against one of the cabin walls before he spun around and rushed towards the cellar. "Well let's get a move on then, before he kills her."

With a nod, the two hunters disappeared down the stairs and into the root cellar, presumably to do a salt and burn on the offending spirit's remains. Taylor watched them leave with a grim smirk as she lay pinned spread-eagle to the wall. She didn't even flinch when Stewart appeared right in front of her and gave a grin that sent shudders down her spine. Yeah, she was scared out of her bloody mind, but there was no way that she was going to give this sick and twisted git the satisfaction of knowing that he frightened her.

"'Ello love."

The Scotswoman scowled darkly at the spirit before she hacked up a lugie that would have made her brother proud and spat it right in Stewart's face. The fact that it sailed right on through the ghost's head made the action just a little bit less impressive, but it was worth it. Especially when Stewart gave her a disgusted sneer as the woman smirked back at him ferally.

"Kiss my ass."

Taylor's bravery cost her as she was jerked unceremoniously off of the wall and thrown back-first into another one, her head and spine colliding painfully with the warped and weathered wood of the cabin walls. The swimmer's back arched as she tried to push herself free of whatever force was holding her pinned to the wall a few feet off of the ground, only to fail miserably. When Stewart approached her with a smug grin on his face, a look of less than sane glee plastered on his features, Taylor spat out something that sounded incredibly foul and painful in Gaelic as she glowered defiantly at him.

"Such language," the spirit crooned as he stroked the side of her face with a freezing hand, a warped smirk taking hold on his pale face as the woman strained to get away from him. "Didn't anyone ever teach you manners?"

"No, my mother neglected to give me that particular lesson," the woman ground out as she glared murderously at Stewart. "Now, here's the million dollar question: how in the _hell_ are you able to do this? From what Sam said, you should be all moans and groans, not be able to actually hold a semi-lucid conversation with me."

Stewart actually stared at her for a moment before he burst out into raucous laughter, sending chills down Taylor's spine as a result. The ghost put his face up close to hers, and for one moment the swimmer thought that she could smell the God-awful stench of decay. Or maybe even the men's locker room, with just a dash of decomposing corpse thrown in to make things fun. Either way, it still made her wish that she would miraculously develop a cold so that she wouldn't be forced to deal with the vomit-worthy odor of rotting meat.

"Didn't you know, little Rift Jumper?" he asked softly, his mouth right my Taylor's ear. "Oh, you don't, do you? I can see it in your eyes; I can see the fear, your utter lack of knowing. You have no clue as to just _what_ you are. But do you know what? I won't let you die ignorant."

"How wonderfully kind of you. You're a real saint," Taylor spat sarcastically as she drew her head back away from Stewart as far as she could manage. "Enlighten me then."

A mad glint entered Stewart's eyes as he looked at the woman, who glared back at him defiantly. The ghost remained silent for a few moments before a deranged sneer crossed his face, and unleashed a cloud of noxious breath into Taylor's face, making her gag.

"It's because of you, little Rift Jumper," the spirit told her smugly. "You returned consciousness to me, and I thank you. And now you'll die."

There was a pregnant pause that permeated the room before the Scotswoman broke it by letting out a very feral-sounding growl.

"Go to hell," Taylor snarled through gritted teeth. "And I really do say that in all seriousness. I honestly hope that they have a special place in Hell reserved specifically for your sorry carcass, and that you get to spend all day just _wishing_ for some lube to grease the prongs of all of the pitchforks that they're gonna be shoving up your ass!"

Any further threats were roughly cut off as a freezing pressure clamped down on the woman's throat, causing her to let out a choked gasp as her oxygen supply was abruptly cut off. Stewart sneered at Taylor, revealing a disgusting set of rotted teeth as he leaned his face in close to hers.

"No one's going to save you this time, Highland child," he told her smugly. Hazel eyes merely stared back at him defiantly, even as Taylor tried her best to claw at his intangible arm in an effort to get the spirit to release her. There was no way that she was going to just go and die without a fight.

Suddenly, Stewart let out a loud howl of pain as he released the swimmer, leaving her to crumple to the floor in an unmoving heap as he suddenly caught fire. Taylor managed to crack open an eye just in time to see the ghost burst into flame entirely before he disappeared into a cloud of ash as she struggled to get up into a sitting position. She slowly scooted away from the spot where Stewart had combusted before she allowed herself to lean up against the wall, one hand gently clasping her bruised throat as all of the strength left her body. She felt like she had just been dragged through a hedge backwards and then promptly run over by a semi.

And she was pretty sure that she had broken at least one of her ribs.

Taylor's vision was just starting to gray out when she heard the sounds of someone rushing up the stairs, and within seconds a familiar face framed by shaggy brown hair was thrust into her line of sight. The woman managed a weak smirk as she looked up at Sam, who was saying something to her, but she couldn't make it out over the roaring sound in her ears.

"Took you long enough," she cracked dryly as she tried to struggle to her feet, weakly pushing Sam away from her so she could have some personal space. "I thought that-"

Whatever the Scotswoman had been about to say died in her throat as the entire world decided to do a 180, and her knees immediately gave out as she pitched forward. Fortunately for her, Sam managed to catch her before she suffered a rather painful meeting with the wooden floor. Taylor didn't even have the chance to contemplate why she was suddenly looking at rough wooden floorboards and not the ceiling before her vision grayed out completely, and darkness swamped her.

Consciousness finally decided to reassert itself roughly around fifteen minutes later when Taylor was jostled awake by a fairly violent bump, one that almost sent her sprawling onto the floor of the Impala. The woman jerked upright with a loud profanity as she instinctively rolled back, and then promptly regretted it as her entire body shrieked with pain. Dean observed the entire process through the rearview mirror as Taylor immediately got back up into her spot before she curled up into a little ball in the leather seat, her hands clenching the sides of her head tightly as she hissed out a very interesting stream of choice phrases while she tried not to scream in pain.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty," the hunter observed dryly, and Sam sent him a warning look in response. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, once I stop feeling like someone just slammed a wrecking ball into my chest," Taylor growled through gritted teeth. "Okay, I think that was officially the dumbest thing I've ever done."

"So what's the dumbest thing that you've ever done unofficially?" Dean quipped. Taylor slowly looked up at the rearview mirror and glared at the older man.

"I think that was probably not kicking you right between the legs and running like hell when I had the bloody chance," she retorted shortly as she tried to straighten up, wincing and sucking in a pained breath every time she jostled her injured ribs or pulled one of her rapidly-developing bruises. "Should have taken my chances with the damned Rottweiler. Probably would have hurt less."

Dean cocked an eyebrow at the whispered comment, especially the last part, and Sam had to bite back a chuckle at the incredibly offended look on his brother's face.

"I resent that comment," he finally said, and Taylor looked up at him though the long bangs currently hanging in her face and offered a strained smirk, although it looked more like a grimace.

"No, you resemble that comment," she shot back as she tried to straighten up once again, and then immediately let out a low groan of pain as she resumed her curled-up position. "Ow. Okay, moving, bad idea."

Sam gave the younger woman a slightly sympathetic look as he tried to hold back his own grimace of pain. He had some pretty bad bruises too, but he hadn't been tossed around nearly as much as Taylor had. Dean had gotten thrown around quite a bit as well, but most of his injuries had come from his unwanted meeting with a tree trunk.

An awkward silence descended upon the occupants of the car as Taylor drifted off into a pained daze, and Dean drove down the deserted back road just as a series of fat raindrops pelted the windshield of the Impala. Soon, rain was pouring down outside, and Dean had turned up the volume on the radio as he slid a Metallica tape into the cassette player.

"Where are we going?" Taylor piped up suddenly as she finally managed to force herself up into a sitting position, grunting slightly through clenched teeth as she shifted about in an attempt to find a more comfortable position. Dean didn't even twitch as he glanced up into the rear-view mirror at her before he returned his attention back to the road. Sam, on the other hand, turned around in his seat to face her, a slight look of concern in his eyes as he glanced at the livid bruise that was slowly starting to darken across her right cheek.

"There's a 24-hour mart up the street. I saw it when we went up to the cabin earlier," he explained, earning a confused look from the woman as she cocked an eyebrow slightly.

"What are we buying?" Taylor asked as she gave a somewhat wry grin. Dean looked back at her and then over at Sam before he let out a long sigh and wearily dragged a hand down his face. All three of them were badly bruised and scratched, although Sam looked the least beat up. Taylor, in his honest opinion, looked like she had gotten into a fistfight with a grizzly bear and lost.

"Ice. Lots and lots of ice."

* * *

Dean let out a sigh of relief as he sank down into a sitting position on his bed, holding an improvised ice pack made out of one of the motel's washcloths to the back of his skull as he looked over at Sam, who was perched on the end of his own bed. Both brothers exchanged knowing looks before they directed their attention over towards their unexpected tagalong. Taylor, who had stripped off her filthy flannel overshirt and placed it on the couch cushion next to her as soon as she had sat down, held a similar improvised ice pack up against her cheek, wincing noticeably whenever she moved. If the expression on her face was anything to go by, she was probably wishing that she was anywhere but there.

The Winchesters watched the woman as she shifted painfully in her seat before she pressed her washcloth ice pack against somewhere on the small of her back, holding it in place awkwardly. Her movements caused something that caught Dean's attention, and he cocked an eyebrow at the sight that was presented to him before he smirked.

"So sweetheart, do you always wear a black bra with that tank top?" he jeered. Taylor gave him a look of exhausted disgust as she straightened up and fixed the older man with an aggravated glare.

"Dude, I'm Scottish. And I'm hurt. That is a very bad combination. Do not piss me off," she growled irritably. "And why don't you go do the world a favor and haul that filthy little mind of yours out of the sewer while you're at it?"

Sam couldn't help it. He burst out laughing when he caught sight of the stupefied look on Dean's face. His brother was definitely not used to being shot down like that by a girl.

"That wasn't funny," the older hunter grumbled under his breath as he looked away from Sam. Taylor cocked an eyebrow sardonically before she shook her head and sighed, regretting the movement almost immediately afterwards as her head began to throb.

"Fuck," she hissed as she immediately dropped her ice pack in favor of clutching her aching head with both hands. "Damn headache. It's a wonder I'm not concussed." Her eyes widened as a thought hit her, and look of absolute relief crossed over her face as she straightened up and grinned broadly at the brothers. "I know what happened."

"You do?" Sam asked bemusedly as he gave Taylor a concerned look. She gave the brothers a satisfied smirk as she leaned back and retrieved her improvised ice pack before she held it to her head.

"Yeah, I do," she stated simply as she let out a slow sigh. "I'm dreaming. I must have fallen and hit my head while out hiking, and now I'm in a hospital somewhere, hallucinating my ass off. In fact, I'll probably be waking up sometime soon to the very much welcomed sounds of my older brother bitching me out for being a klutz."

The Winchesters both exchanged appropriately wary looks at the woman's statement, and Sam slowly got to his feet before he walked over to the couch and crouched down in front of Taylor.

"Umm… Taylor?" he asked hesitantly, his voice tinged with concern as he looked her right in the eyes. "I hate to break it to you, but you're not dreaming. Or concussed. Or hallucinating."

The sarcastic look that he received in response would have sent a lesser man running away screaming. "Really now? And why is that? Last time I checked, ghosts do not exist. And since they do not exist, they cannot tell me that I'm the reason why they are more psychotic than normal while they're tossing my sorry ass all over creation, and giving me bruises the size of small countries in the process. So, if I'm not dreaming, or hallucinating, then that leaves only one plausible option: I've gone insane."

The tone of her voice became increasingly more frantic with each word, and Sam watched warily as Taylor's eyes widened, and she stared at him in a way that plainly told him that she wanted to wake up right then and there. When she made as though she was about to stand up though, the taller man reached out and grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, forcing Taylor to remain seated.

"Look, just… take a deep breath, and calm down," he said in what he hoped was a reassuring manner as he held the panicked woman in place. "You're not crazy, okay?"

Dean chuckled noticeably at his brother's comment, earning a dirty glare from the younger Winchester in response.

"And there's the freak-out that she was talking about," he drawled sardonically. Sam scowled at him irritably, but didn't say anything to contradict his brother's statement. Dean arched an eyebrow challengingly in response, smirking slightly as Taylor fixed him with an irritated glower of her own.

"You're an ass, you know that, right?" she growled as she raised her right hand up and flipped the hunter the bird before she retrieved her ice pack and gently placed it against her left side, letting out a soft hiss of pain as the movement jostled her broken rib. "Bloody ghost. I really do hope he's warming his toasties in some hellfire right now."

Dean made a choking noise as he looked over at Taylor, an incredulous expression on his face as he stared apprehensively at the younger woman while Sam slowly edged towards the bag containing their gear.

"And why do you say that?" the elder Winchester asked nonchalantly. The woman let out a sigh as she stiffly reclined against the back of the couch, hissing a curse under her breath when the movement disagreed with the rest of her injuries.

"Isn't that what the Bible says? You know, murderers go to hell and all that?" she muttered wearily before she cracked open one eye and looked at the hunter with an expression of what could only be described as resigned exhaustion. "So, I'm pretty sure that a homicidal serial killer from the 19th century falls into that category."

Dean relaxed marginally at that. At least his fears had been allayed slightly this time. Whatever this girl was, at least she wasn't some little two-bit demon looking to score big time with her boss by hauling his ass downstairs almost a year ahead of schedule.

"The Bible also says no blasphemy, which I don't exactly see you adhering to."

Taylor looked up at him, a disbelieving eyebrow raised over hazel eyes before she rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, accompanied by only the minutest shaking of her head. Apparently she had learned the much-valued lesson that shaking your head while you had a head injury wasn't exactly the smartest thing to do.

"The Bible says not to use the Lord's name in vain," she explained patiently in her best 'okay-I'm-talking-to-absolute-retards' voice. "So far, I have not once used God's name in any of my cussing tangents, so I'm okay for now."

Sam couldn't help it; when he saw the incredibly offended look on his brother's face, he burst out laughing.

* * *

Hello people. In spite of what others may have been whispering, I am not yet dead. School just decided to suck away at what was left of my soul – the rest of it being trapped in my many creative works – and inspiration deserted me. I am not abandoning this story. I just want to make that one clear right away.

However, I am going to be re-writing it.

(Hitokiri pauses before ducking behind a conveniently-placed brick wall, anticipating a barrage of curses and rotten produce.)

Look, before I get screamed at or anything, I just want you guys to know that I took a look at this story after letting it sit for a year – and I mean _really_ took a look at it, and I realized something. Even though I was doing my damndest to keep it from being too cliché, it was still cliché. Actually, to put not too fine a point on it, it was clichéd as hell. So, I'm going to do a new plotline, and do some major editing. No worries, Taylor's still going to be here, and she's still gonna be a little less than normal, but there are going to be some serious changes.

I'm gonna put up the new story under the name of _Carry On_.

Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed so far, and I hope that you look forward to my other works. Also, for anyone who is interested, I have a Doctor Who/Supernatural crossover written and posted. Just a little something to keep you guys busy.


End file.
